


Bubble, Toil, and Trouble

by endlesstalesofwonder



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Bearded Derek, Full Shift Derek Hale, Full Shift Werewolves, Lovesick idiots, M/M, Magic, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Mischief the Wolf, Roommates, Slow Burn, Stilinski family bonding, Werewolf Derek, Witch Stiles Stilinski, an actual wolf, magic seeking magic, roommates to friends to lovers, werewolf as a roommate
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-08
Updated: 2020-03-09
Packaged: 2020-08-16 02:47:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20169979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/endlesstalesofwonder/pseuds/endlesstalesofwonder
Summary: There was something about sharing a space with someone that Stiles found strangely… strange. He had roommates before, and they had all been disasters. But not the werewolf, of all things.





	1. In the Candle Light

**Author's Note:**

> I've been running with the idea of a magical/witchy Stiles and this was one of those love-childs.

There was something about sharing a space with someone that Stiles found strangely… strange. He had roommates before, and they had all been disasters. In his first year of college, there was this guy that couldn’t keep his hands off of Cactus Everdeen (yes, his plant) and demanded that he be rushed to the hospital as well as to a new place to live. The second year, one had drunk a hair renewal potion in the fridge — it was partially Stiles’ fault for using the orange juice carton — and came walking out of the kitchen looking like the child of Bigfoot and Michael J. Fox’s  _ Teen Wolf.  _

Last year had been the tipping point. Stiles had managed to push both him and his roommate out of their small apartment after one small mistake with a spell that ended up with half of the living room on fire. In all fairness, it wasn’t his fault that the letters were smudged, turning  _ flame  _ into  _ flora. _

Now, he was content.

“What are you doing?”

Stiles froze, a pure quartz stirring stick —  _ It’s not a chopstick, Derek. —  _ poised between his lips with his arms outstretched. “What? I need to heat up this potion?” Instead, the words came out sounding like  _ aht, ah ee oo ead uh his ohun.  _

Derek’s eyes furled deeper into a scowl that was nearly one hundred and fifty percent judgment. “In the microwave?”

His eyes flickered from the man to the microwave, then to the miniature cauldron that he had found on  _ E-Brew _ . It still bore the over-broiled contents of the last attempts to use it, unable to remove the damn goop without throwing the whole thing out. “Would you rather me use fire?”

_ No,  _ both of their faces said. Stiles carefully placed the mixture into the microwave and entered two minutes into the timer.

Derek’s eyes narrowed as he turned on his heels and stalked back to his office. “You’re cleaning up your mess,” came with his retreating footsteps.

“ _ If  _ I make a mess,” he called back.

_ “When.”  _ The distinct sound of the door groaning as it closed let him know that the conversation was now over.

“When,” Stiles mocked in his best Derek-impression, then blew a raspberry in his general direction.

Derek Hale was a contradiction to everything Stiles held dearly. Where Stiles was erratic and found structure in his personal chaos, Derek was stoic, stable, and clean beyond all belief. When Stiles was able to glimpse into the office before the door shut —  _ Everyone needs their own space, Stiles. This is mine. Now, leave before I make you. —  _ everything was neat and orderly; in its space and never anywhere else. 

It was surprising at how much opposition the two men held against each other and yet there was no long-lasting collateral damage. They orbited each other like two balanced planets, passing and always on the verge of touching every so often. It worked for them. Granted, Derek was the first werewolf roommate he’d ever had and respected his magical lifestyle, but there was always a first time for everything. 

**06:22PM Derek: I can hear you.**

“Thanks for the reminder,” Stiles muttered. Werewolves and their stupid heightened senses. He threw up a finger at the man.  _ Let’s see how he senses that,  _ he thought.

**06:23PM Derek: Very mature.**

Stiles frowned. He punched open the microwave after its persistent beeping and nearly burnt his fingers trying to get the bowl back onto the counter. Derek would’ve been pissed if he dropped another mixing bowl on the floor again. He’d only just repaired the hole in the floor from the last mess.

The potion had been a request from a loyal client that always paid him well, especially when he was dealing with very volatile materials. Stiles figured it was well worth the potential excruciating death in favor of a whole five months of rent. No one could pass up an opportunity like that.

After heating it up, he was to mix it for exactly two hours before bottling and freezing it for another day and a half for it to ferment properly. The first half-hour passed with no interaction. He was mindlessly stirring, wishing he’d at least turned on the tv before he’d started. He couldn’t even reach to get his phone to ask Derek to do it without possibly letting the stuff sit for a second too long and ignite.

At the first hour mark, Derek huffed his way into the living room and turned on the tv. Stiles was thinking too loud, was his excuse. But, hey, it got him some entertainment, so who was he to complain.

He was near the end of an episode of  _ Friends  _ when the tv turned off. And all of the lights. It took all of half a second before the office door was yanked open and the wolf was seething in his direction.

“What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything,” he cried out in defense.

Although, it might have been him. His magic was very territorial. When someone else used magic in close contact with his, it could bounce back and make some gnarly messes. He’d first learned that in high school and the embarrassment of the whole ordeal was enough to haunt him forever. However, he didn’t feel any after-shock or bounce-back from nearby sources.

Derek narrowed his eyes. “Then what’s going on?”

“I’m a witch, not a prophet, Derek. Figure it out.”

The wolf stalked across the room and pulled back the drapes for the back door. No light flowed into the room with the change. “The entire block is out.” He tipped his head slightly. “Ms. Henderson is making her rounds. Black-out until they fixed the power lines. Must’ve been a car accident.”

“Great. There should be some candles in one of the cabinets.”

“Can’t you just,” Derek stalled. Stiles didn’t need any lights to know that he was making vague magical gestures. 

“I can do that, or I can keep stirring this for the next twenty minutes to avoid any possible explosions.”

The witch could practically hear the wolf grinding his teeth. “I’d tell you to find a new occupation, but I know how that’d turn out.”

“It was one coffee!”

He made a sound somewhere between a scoff and a snort. Either way, Stiles was still offended.  _ Beans and Brew  _ still hadn’t lifted his ban from all of their locations, and he was bitter, to say the least.

“Which cabinet?”

“It’s either below the medicine cabinet or next to the tv. I can’t remember.”

_ “That’s helpful.” _

Their squabbling went on as Derek rummaged through the offending cabinets, making more noise than necessary to find simple candles. Derek was near the tv, opening the second of three doors, when Stiles realized.

“Derek, can you see in the dark?”

“I’m a werewolf, not a miracle-worker,” he quipped right back.

Sure, throw his words right back at him, but it didn’t help their current situation. He waited a moment of rustling, then the door clanking shut, before asking, “Did you find them yet?”

Now the wolf growled. 

“No rush. Just… If I don’t bottle these exactly when I need to…”

“It’ll explode,” he finished. “I got it.”

“Good.”

There were five minutes left, and Derek was still searching. They weren’t where he’d originally thought they’d be. Derek dug behind the batteries and DVD cabinet with no luck. The wolf was persistently growling louder and louder while pushing cans out of the way in the pantry when the rumbling stopped.

“The pantry? You’re an idiot.”

“We can move them later. Just get one over here so I can see what I’m doing.”

As much as Derek had told him several times that he wasn’t one to take orders from a ‘ _ scrawny, no-good, death-wish witch’,  _ he was surprisingly lax with the instruction. It could very well be the impending doom looming over them as the minutes counted down.

The wolf abandoned the matches in favor of the long-handled lighter, which took some praises to get working. On the fourth try, it lit and he placed a glowing candle beside Stiles’ work-station: close enough to see, but not enough to potentially spark up an explosion.

On-time, Stiles maneuvered the mix into the designated bottle, sealed it, signed it, and put it into the freezer. He looked to Derek for some sort of appraisal, or at least proof of acceptance that they very well did not die.

Derek was pointedly  _ not  _ looking at him. He was lighting as many candles as he could manage without becoming a fire hazard. He said nothing as he took the five candles over to the coffee table in the living room. Stiles followed him with his one and set it beside the others before falling into the cushion next to him. He gave him one minute of silence.

“You going to sit here for the rest of the night, or?”

Derek turned, eyebrows creased. He frowned, stood, then left. The sudden lack of wolf made the largeness of the room very apparent, and before Stiles could do anything, the wolf was back again, book in hand, and took the same seat as before.

“Of course.” Stiles looked at the title, then groaned. “Really?”

_ Practical Magic  _ was hardly an accurate representation of the supernatural world. Derek knew how much he despised it, only because Stiles had admitted during one drunken stupor that he’d tried the love spell and ended up making flowers grow out of his skin for two months before fixing it. 

“I haven’t finished reading it yet.”

“You have, don’t lie. I saw you reading it last weekend.”

Derek narrowed his eyes at him. “Maybe I’m a slow reader.”

“Not with the size of our library,” Stiles scoffed. He settled further into the couch, crossing his arms over his chest as he counted out how many pages Derek got through in the passing time. He broke at the second page well after five minutes had passed. “You’re not even reading, are you?”

A noncommittal noise came from the wolf. He bumped his thigh with his own. Derek practically had to drag his eyes up to look at the witch-like it was a chore. 

“Read to me. From the beginning.”

Derek stared at him for a moment as the witch closed his eyes and waited. Stiles didn’t really think that he would. Derek was more of a silent reader but overly expressive in his facial features, contorting and twisting as though he was in the character’s shoes. It was interesting to watch — when Stiles could find the time to do so.

They made it through the first chapter, a few pages into the second before they started to get jumbled and fuzzy in his mind. Between one blink and the next, Stiles was fast asleep.


	2. Through the Slick Slime

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Double update as a taste of what's to come / be explored.

There were worse things for Derek to walk in on. Stiles, partially disheveled with a torn tank top, worn basketball shorts, ectoplasm, and soot covering the majority of his body, was not one of them. 

The wolf sighed as he closed the front door.

“Hey. I didn’t blow anything up today.” As the witch waved his hands incredulously, pieces of slime flew across the room and into the walls with a slick smack.

The wolf grimaced.

He kicked off his shoes before pushing them to sit perpendicular to the wall, unlike Stiles’ scattered pairs. “What do you want? A gold star?”

“Asshole.” He didn’t even try to cover the word with a mutter. The man deserved to hear it— “Wait, do you really —” A dish towel to the face cut him off. It’d been the one he brought in the event that he did make a mess. Good thing he did. “Ha. Ha. Very funny.”

“I thought it was hilarious.”

Stiles threw the towel right back. It wasn’t fair that his supernatural senses allowed him to detect the object before catching it was ease. 

The man walked off with a smirk, disappearing into the kitchen, followed by the sounds of drawers being pulled open and closed.

The witch huffed, shifting from one foot to another. He tried to move from the spot only to receive a quick,  _ “Don’t even think about it”  _ from the other side of the wall.

“What were you even doing?”

“I was working on a portal design.”

“Again?” 

It shouldn’t surprise Stiles that Derek had always been listening to him during his rambling about projects. It did anyways. He swallowed the tightness in his throat.

“What went wrong this time?”

“What makes you think something went wrong?”

Derek returned with three medium-sized, well-worn,  _ Stiles-made-a-mess  _ towels and a small mixing bowl. His eyebrow was raised.

Stiles sighed. “Something’s not connecting. It’s like I’m walking into an upright shallow pool of jelly.”

He gave a low sound of agreement. He took the first towel and began scooping and dragging the biggest chunks of ectoplasm into the bowl with ease.

“Maybe it’s the sigils? It might be because they’re too specific —”

“Arm.” 

Stiles obediently rose his arm for him to access his side. “—Runes could work but finding the right language is going to take some time and I really don’t have  _ that  _ much time to narrow down my choices. Why are there so many different variations of Latin? It’s ridiculous —”

Derek slapped down the saturated towel. “Other arm.”

He did the same. “—Blood is off the table for obvious reasons. Saliva isn’t strong enough. There needs to be a binding agent of some kind to make it stable enough —”

Another towel was thrown down. Derek gently pushed the second towel across his shoulders and collarbone.

“—I can’t — It’s like it’s sitting right there out of reach and I can’t — Ugh!” Stiles bent his head back, both in exasperation and for accessibility.

Derek’s movements paused before resuming in barely-there pulls down his neck. “You’ll figure it out. You always do.”

The man finished cleaning his neck, a soft blush blooming across his cheeks and the tips of his ears. 

“Thanks.” Stiles didn’t notice how close they were standing. Was he that close before? When had he stepped closer? Should he step back? Step forward? What about — Derek tossed the last towel into his face and hair.

“You’re more than capable to finish cleaning yourself.”

“Ass,” he muttered, although he knew very well that he could hear him. He scooped the rest of the plasma out of his hair before marching himself into his bathroom to get as clean as possible.

It took him three showers to get the sticky grime off of his body and finally feel clean.

Drying his hair with a towel, he leaned against the frame of Derek’s office, not a toe beyond the cut of the door. 

Derek was still very particular about his personal space, but he was wearing him down bit by bit. Before, he wouldn’t even be allowed to lean so close to the interior, let alone touch the door. Stiles didn’t really mind, figuring it was more of a werewolf thing more than anything else; a sort of den. Where the bedroom was strictly reserved for sleep and other related activities that Stiles tried not to think about, the office was where he could find Derek at any other time of the day. He’d sleep in there if he could, but Stiles wouldn’t let him — “ _ a couch isn’t a bed, Derek. You need some sleep support in your life.” _

The wolf was unpacking his satchel, pulling out his laptop, a bulky filing folder, and a thick notebook. 

“How’s the dissertation coming?” 

_ Distract me,  _ Stiles was practically begging. It was his best way to get inspiration. By thinking about something else, he wasn’t thinking about his main concern — i.e. the portal — and then would suddenly have a new idea or perspective on the project. It was a flawless plan that got him through the first few years of high school and college. It hadn’t failed him yet.

Derek raked his hand through his hair. It was a miracle — or a simple magical hair product — that the strands didn’t go sticking out in all directions. They fell back in the same spots that his fingers pulled them from. The serum needed some work, he noted, as he watched a strand manage to fall out of place and hang on his forehead.

When all else failed, the man growled.

“That bad, huh.”

“We peer-reviewed today. The bastard had the nerve to call my work shallow and privileged.”

Stiles winced. “Brutal.”

He’d read several versions and excerpts from Derek’s writing. He couldn’t restate anything that was said other than the fact that it was about architectural theory and referenced some dead dude that he remembered hearing about in an art history class he’d taken during his second year. Overall, there was nothing that Stiles could say was wrong with it. Then again, he wasn’t an expert in the subject. Merely an encouraging supporter.

“Clearly they don’t know what they’re talking about.  _ Shallow.”  _ He blew a raspberry. “Bullshit.”

Derek was holding said draft of the paper with all the accompanying red lines and commentary in someone else’s handwriting, and then Derek’s familiar script in a dark blue surrounding them,  _ ‘fix this?’, ‘move this to later’,  _ and  _ ‘???????’.  _

“I’m ordering pizza,” Stiles immediately decided, turning away to order in the kitchen.

Derek finally broke from his trance. “Get—”

“Double combination, no artichoke hearts, and a sausage lovers with double mushroom. I know.” He shook his head. 

He’d learned very early on what the wolf’s go-to pizza order was. It was one of the best ways to get to know his roommates in the past, and he’d be damned if it didn’t work on a werewolf. He just had to remember to order extra meat for the higher metabolism.

It didn’t take much coercing to get Derek out of the office. Stiles shuffled around the living room as he ordered their mountain of pizza, then scoured through the living room to find the remote to queue up their go-to:  _ Psych  _ reruns. It was a game that they’d started to figure out who’d done the crime before Shawn put all the clues together. It often lead to covering the other’s eyes to make them miss something. The sound of the intro made the wolf exit his den and take up his spot in his favorite seat on the couch.

The food was delivered in no time, and they were completely immersed in shenanigans and idiotic plans that reminded Stiles of his childhood.

When they finished their fifth episode, Derek stretched out and scratched at the scruff that was slowly becoming a beard. It surprised Stiles that hair didn’t just constantly grow with the boosted werewolf abilities, but he supposed that it wouldn’t make sense anyways. 

Stiles turned off the tv and stood.

The wolf yawned, blunt teeth bared. “Don’t stay up too late.”

“Same goes for you.”

Derek huffed. He brushed past the witch on his way to his office. The warmth of his touch blossomed and spread throughout his entire bicep and shoulder. The click of the door stalled as the wolf added a curt, “Goodnight,” before closing.

Stiles jerked awake. 

The digital alarm clock on his bedside table said it was some early hour of the morning, but they were shifting back and forth with too many numbers. Not that Stiles actually cared what time it was. He just needed to remember his dream.

The idea was still there, brimming with unbridled possibility. He threw the sheets off of him and practically sprinted — albeit quietly — to the apothecary to finish his plans.

Derek found him, once again with soot and considerably less slime, at six, bleary-eyed and cowlicks in his hair. The wolf didn’t look any better. Sleep was still sitting heavy in his eyes and everything about him dared anyone to look at him the wrong way.

_ Do I even want to ask,  _ was written in his eyes. 

Stiles smiled bright — brighter than the sun, which made Derek squint before he backed out of the room and went to make coffee for the long morning. He paused, however, at the sight of the witch drumming his fingers next to a take-out carrying container of the wolf’s favorite brew that he’d found in Arizona.

Stiles didn’t need any words to tell that he was proud. It was in the soft graze against the small of his back, despite the slime, that said it all.


	3. Wolf of a Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles should have never listened to the plant when they wanted to be in the kitchen window rather than the apothecary just because ‘the sunlight felt better in that room’.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Tuesday!  
I've got another chapter up and running. Apologies for any mistakes, this is an un-beta'd work so all mistakes are my own and have managed to slip past me.
> 
> Warning: There are hints of non-consensual themes in this chapter. Not in a sexual manner, but in a magic-made-me-do-it sort of manner.  
[Hint: Werewolf-weed, of sorts]

In hindsight, Stiles should have never listened to the plant when they wanted to be in the kitchen window rather than the apothecary just because ‘the sunlight felt better in that room’. He had made a sign that warned: _DO NOT TOUCH, _but it kept disappearing. He’d thought that Derek kept taking it down because, _‘yes, Stiles, I know not to touch anything.’ _

That was not the case, as Derek was currently standing in the kitchen, a hand reaching out as though to cradle one of the outstretched leaves—

“Derek!” Stiles lunged for the wolf. “Don’t touch that one!”

The wolf moved back slowly. 

The witch snapped his fingers in front of his face to get the dazed look out of his eyes. Once they flashed blue, he stopped and snatched both of his hands.

“Did you touch it?” He flipped over his hands, front-to-back and back-to-front again. There were no outstanding marks or sudden swelling welts. There were small silver scars scattered over his fingers. One from when he’d cut it while working on a diorama for a presentation; another from trying to catch one of Stiles’ messes. He knew those. 

He didn’t know  _ why  _ the werewolf had these scars. The ones from his own mistakes and messes — especially when stronger magic was involved — those made sense. Magic inhibited him from healing correctly. The ones from work? From personal projects? They were ninety-nine percent of the time magic-free. Sometimes Stiles wanted to think that the man wanted to be more human, but he didn’t want to get stuck on the thought for too long.

Derek reclaimed his hands. “I’m fine.”

The witch frowned. “Did you touch it?”

“No,” the wolf bit out, baring his teeth slightly. The sight didn’t scare Stiles anymore, not since he was a teenager.

The man stormed off, the office door slamming behind him before it reopened, he came back into the kitchen, grabbed something to drink from the fridge, then stormed off again.

_ Nice, Derek. _

The witch sighed, rubbing at the back of his neck. A small weight settled at the base of his spine with a touch of worry but completely unnecessary. He didn’t even know what the plant did. Not specifically. It was an enhancer or inhibitor of some kind. The herbal and botany books he had weren’t as insightful as they normally were, which meant there wasn’t even a mention in the index about the damn plant. 

He stared at the thing, the look turning more into an interrogative glare, and asked it, “Did he touch you?”

The small plant shook.  _ No.  _

He didn’t want to believe the plant. But he believed Derek, and that was enough for him.

Needless to say, he kept his eyes on the wolf for the rest of the day. Not in the persistent, stalking-but-from-a-reasonable-distance sort of way. It was a is-he-still-breathing-okay-he-is sort of way.

He curled himself around the door of the apothecary, listening whenever the office door would open and shut before returning to his research about what the plant was.

Stiles loved his research. He found out new things that he wasn’t actually searching for, and sometimes he would make new friends on the internet as a result of asking more questions and connecting to more and more people. It was a nice circle that wasn’t necessarily a vertical drop into a rabbit hole, but more of a slow saunter towards the bottom of a pit. 

The answer he was looking for was in front of his face all along —  _ thank you Siberian man with an attitude.  _ Throughout his research, Stiles recognized the same phrase being repeated over and over about the plant, and to translate:  _ it was fucking werewolf cat-nip.  _

_ The Jaded Wolf  _ was supposed to lower the inhibitions and restrains of a werewolf, not necessarily to attack or harm another, but to lower some walls for a greater good. At least, that’s what everyone was saying.

The witch ran his hands through his hair, wanting to jump up and yell  _ hallelujah,  _ but he couldn’t. He couldn’t explain it. One moment his  _ Classic Queen  _ playlist was playing and then there was a shiver down his spine that shot him rimrod straight and sent him clenching the workbench like a lifeline. He pulled his headphones out.

“Derek?”

The floorboards beneath him trembled. 

The stool he was sitting on cracked against the hardwood floor, but it was lost in the thrumming of his heart that  _ something could be wrong with Derek.  _ He used the doorways to launch himself around corners and his socks helped provide the swift gliding to skid next to the crouched wolf’s side in the living room. One of the lamps was broken beside him and the chair had a deep gouge taken out of the arm.

A string of swears words and  _ Derek  _ spilled from his lips as he tried to assess the situation — Derek pushed the witch away with a very much clawed hand and curled in on himself even further.

A list of things that could potentially help, but also possibly make this much much worse flashed through his mind and all he could do was stay away to avoid Derek’s claw and any evidence that something went wrong. 

And then there was snapping. Cracking. Bone’s breaking. 

_ Sweet Heavens —  _ Stiles turned away before he possibly vomited on the man. 

The snapping stopped. 

Stiles counted his breaths before turning back and, instead of finding a man, there was a very large  _ wolf  _ — he’d need to be blind to think it was a dog — in the place of Derek.

“Holy shit!”

_ Derek.  _ The  _ real wolf. _ Was Derek.

Stiles could very well have an aneurysm. 

The wolf shook itself off and shifted from one foot — paw — to another. He turned around and just stared. Correction:  _ glared with a fiery passion. _

Yep. That’s Derek.

“Did you know you could do a full-shift?”

Derek did nothing. 

“Derek?”

The wolf jerked slightly, scenting the air before turning to the witch. 

“Are you still in there, because if you’re messing with me—”

He yelped as the wolf was  _ right there,  _ a deep rumbling in his chest as he approached and pushed himself against Stiles’ legs and thighs. He was practically the size of a small horse and could push the witch over with a single thought when he was a man. As a wolf, it’d take a fraction of that time to get him to the floor.

The witch kept moving out of the werewolf’s way before realizing that no matter where he moved the wolf would be right there, keeping him steady but also testing how much balance he really had on his feet — which was some, but only on the very best of days.

“You’re tactile as hell like this, aren’t you.” He offered his hand to the creature and a long wet swipe nearly crossed his entire forearm. “Gross.”

He cleaned it off on his pants with a soft, but sarcastic, “Thanks.”

The wolf was positively  _ brimming  _ with happiness. The rumbling progressed into a low-level roll of thunder that Stiles could feel reverberate in his own chest. He rubbed at his sternum as inconspicuous as possible. 

Derek trotted off to the kitchen, then the dining room-slash-front room, stopping and looking off into the distance before moving on to the next room. Stiles was just getting settled in his spot on the couch as there was scratching coming from the hallway.  _ His office. _

“Get comfortable here,” he called out, then remembered that it really wasn’t necessary. Not with his hearing. Derek appeared not a second later, head tilted in a poised ‘ _ what do you mean?’ _ . “I’m not letting you into your office, because you’re going to hate me if you break anything and I have to go inside to clean it up.”

_ Because then I’ll be touching things and leaving my scent everywhere and I could very well lose the best roommate I’ve ever had all because of a stupid plant that couldn’t keep his leaves to himself,  _ he thought instead. He swallowed the words to get rid of the lump in his throat.

Derek huffed a very possible,  _ as if. _

“I know you’re more careful than me. It doesn’t mean it won’t happen. I’d rather not risk it.”The wolf stayed there, bent around the gap in the wall before shaking once again. “I can put on something, if that’s better.”

He rolled his little werewolf eyes and it took everything Stiles had to not flick a curse in his general direction, the little shit. Derek crossed the living room and  _ jumped onto the couch.  _

“Ah, man.”  _ He’s going to have a field day when he gets back to himself.  _

Derek’s head turned from the witch to the in-ribbons furniture as though him being on the couch was the least of his worries.

“I got it,” he huffed, snapping his fingers to instruct the couch how to mend itself together. The leather stretched and pulled into place while the stitching swam along the seam to keep it that way.

Satisfied, Derek turned back.

The witch thought he could get away with a soft,  _ “So bossy,”  _ under his breath, but the wolf rearranged himself to be seated across the witch’s lap, pinning him indefinitely.

“Oh, come on. How am I supposed to get the remote?”

The plastic thing was sitting on the coffee table, taunting him just out of reach. Derek’s weight, plus the totally obvious extra push to keep him in the cushion, was making the notion of watching anything impossible. Derek was, however, trained on something else.

“I’m not reading to you.”

Derek had kept a small stack of books on the end table for the precise purpose of nights when watching tv or a movie wasn’t very appealing. Or he wanted to pointedly ignore Stiles. They were all  _ his  _ favorites because Stiles wouldn’t read them anyways regardless of whether he liked them or not. 

The wolf whined.

“No.” He did it again, but with the slightest tilt to his head — “No. It doesn’t work on me.”

Claws worked. Claws  _ very much worked.  _ They didn’t dig into his skin, but they scraped just barely through his jeans as a reminder that he had them and could very well use them whenever he wanted.

_ Cheater.  _

Stiles grabbed a book at random, nearly sending the entire pile toppling over the edge. He didn’t bother to hide his mutters from him. “You really are bossy.”

He’d read some of  _ Good Omens  _ before. He’d watched the series long before trying, but it was a worthy effort on his part. There were several pages that had been dog-eared throughout the book. It left no doubt to whoever picked up the book that the story was well-loved. Adored. 

“I don’t read as well as you do. Just a warning.” Stiles opened it and started from the beginning.

He read exactly six pages before falling asleep.

Stiles woke up in his own bed. It took him a moment, as though rebooting an old computer, when the lightbulb of his mind turned on and made him promptly flail out of bed with a solid crash.

He made a note to add wards so other occupants (namely the supernatural ones that lived with him) couldn’t hear such things.

It was a bad sign when he was half-way down the stairs and he already smelled coffee. That meant one of two things: there was a very friendly burglar who could offer him coffee before robbing him blind; or Derek was awake and a fully functioning human-being.

It didn’t make him feel any better to hope that it was the burglar.

“Morning,” he tried instead, keeping his voice and hopes high that the morning wouldn’t end in bloodshed.

There was a coffee waiting for him next to the man. On the corner of the breakfast bar was a lonely cardboard box  _ completely  _ sealed with duct tape, and there was a missing plant in the window.

His high hopes were lost.

Derek sipped from his coffee. Slurping it  _ loud. _ “Morning.”

The witch sighed. “You remember?”

“Everything.”

“Listen, I —”

The man raised his eyebrows from behind his cup. The draw of his eyebrows and the sharpness of his stare was begging for Stiles to challenge him, do anything other than be utterly silent in his presence.

They both knew that wouldn’t last long. “I didn’t know that would happen—”

“Why do you have it?”

“It was a gift.” It’d been from one of his online friends, someone from within his supernatural community, sharing and collecting a wealth of information for their own use. “Wait—” He redirected himself. “You told me you didn’t touch it.”

“I  _ didn’t.”  _ The wolf bit back a low growl, lowering it to a rumble. “ _ It touched me.” _

“Oh, excuse me for the  _ technicality.” _

They let the silence fall over them, coffee and the sound of their breath as the only exchange going on between them. Stiles ran his fingers through his hair, then sighed.

“I finally found out what it is. It’s called  _ The Jaded Wolf  _ and it’s supposed to be a relaxer. Werewolf-nip, if you want, or if you think that werewolf-weed has a better ring to it—” Derek glared. “I didn’t mean for that to happen to you.”

Derek shrugged, his lips moving in a familiar pattern that almost resembled,  _ thank you.  _

“What was that?”

“You heard me.”

“I don’t know why—”

“I’ve been trying to… shift. For years now.”

That was… interesting. Stiles looked over the werewolf. The full-shift was extremely rare, and when it was found it was seen primarily with older alphas with decades of experience to help guide them. 

Stiles was learning more and more about him every day.

The witch grinned. “I can keep the plant if you —”

“You’re getting rid of it,” he growled.

“Understood.” Stiles ran his fingers over the top of the duct-taped box. A very large, red printing note read:  _ DO NOT OPEN,  _ in Derek’s bold script. “Does that mean you don’t need it… or…?”

“Stiles.”

The witch looked up. “Hm?”

Seeing the wolf grin like that made him want to both run and lay on the floor, belly up. His stomach turned while his chest burned. “If you don’t get rid of it, I’ll put it in your food to see what it does to you.”

“There was a sign!”

“Get rid of it!” He growled, brushing past his side to retreat to his office with a slam of the door.

Regardless, Stiles smiled and took out the trash.

The next day, Stiles left his apothecary — without the prior day’s urgency — and found Derek’s office door open. A large shadow danced across the floor, larger than normal. The witch approached, fingers at the ready, when Derek walked out. As a wolf. With a book between his teeth.

The tingling in his fingers immediately died out. He looked from the book to the wolf. “Do I want to know?”

Derek huffed then walked off without another wordless explanation. He passed through the living room and out to the backyard. Stiles wanted to think he’d opened the door before he’d fully-shifted, but the paw prints against the glass said different.

The witch leaned against the slider door and watched the wolf drop the book in the middle of the yard, then circle the entire perimeter of the fence before laying down beside it.

“Just how are you going to read that?”

Derek looked up.

“No.”

He slowly nudged it towards him with his nose.

“Derek, I already read to you last night.”

Even as a wolf, he was as expressive as he was a man.  _ You call that reading? _

“I did my best under the circumstances, alright?” Despite his opposition, he was walking into the backyard — socks getting dirtier by the step — “Really?”

_ The Wizard of Oz.  _

“I’m starting to think you’ve been doing research about me.”

Derek rolled his head,  _ so-so.  _

“He wasn’t even a wizard. He was more of a scientist than anything else, everything could easily be explained with mechanisms and, literally, smoke and mirrors. I could totally do better magic than he could ever dream of, c’mon,  _ a hot air balloon is not magic —” _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Check me out over on tumblr as endlesstalesofwonder. I post some drabbles and other works, as well as chapter updates (when I can remember to do them). Plus all things that I deem worthy of posting. Sterek things, character analysis, Stiles' flannel choices (favorite), and even other fandoms as well: specifically, Shadowhunters (Malec).  
Check it out!  
Thanks for reading!


	4. Magic Maketh Man (Part One)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles could feel it, like something raking a single claw down his back. Something was following them.
> 
> (Part one of two)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I will tell you what: this monster of a chapter has been a long time in the making. Between school and work, I'm glad I have something to share after some time.
> 
> WARNING: there is some non-con in the conventions of magic use against a character that leads to an attack. There's not much detail, but if this upsets you, please continue with caution.

Stiles could feel it in his bones and with every breath that past his lips. 

Something was wrong. 

Something was  _ coming.  _

It started with the pendants going quiet. Stiles had found them during his time in Spain, studying ancient ruins that had been recently discovered by locals. Their power had been awakened with the disturbance of their artifact chamber and if Stiles hadn’t intervened when he did then they would have flattened the village and a fraction of the country. Stiles bound them, gave them to a local antiquities and artifacts shop, and occasionally visited them to make sure they were behaving appropriately. They had always whispered literal nothings whenever he passed. 

He couldn’t remember a time that they had been absolutely quiet. A week of their silence left an unwelcome feeling tingling uncomfortably underneath his sternum that was steadily collecting like a balloon ready to pop. 

He made his regular visit to the shop, greeted Dorianne at the front desk with a smile, and walked through to the back restricted section. He didn’t step two feet past the first pendant before he stopped, then slowly backed up to make sure he was hearing what he thought he was hearing.

_ The pendants were singing. _

Stiles was under no impression that they could sing, or harmonize, in any capacity. If anything, the fact that they could string together recognizable sounds was shocking. It should come as no surprise, but he couldn’t recognize the language. He couldn’t recognize the signature of the beat or tune. 

The sound of it sent adrenaline spiking through his veins, screaming at him to run no matter how far or how fast. Just run.

“Stiles?” Dorianne stood at the door, concern creasing her face into a frown.

He couldn’t  _ breathe.  _ He couldn’t remember if he said anything to her as he passed by, whether it be a passive goodbye or an apology of some sort. He slammed into several people on the street and crossed a very active avenue without the help of a crosswalk. He passed the market that Derek liked to go in the early hours of the weekend, the bookstore where Stiles was notoriously dragged for more books that’d just sit in the hallways until they were read, the post office, the overpriced coffee shop.

“Stiles?”

He couldn’t remember getting home so fast. It seemed as though from one step to another he was transported to their entryway.

The witch gasped, trying to pull in the breath that was not cooperating with his lungs.

“Stiles. Breathe with me.”

He  _ tried.  _ He was trying. 

“Breathe with me,” the other man repeated.

Derek slowly came into focus as a hot wave rushed through Stiles' head. He let the heat pull his head down and Derek kept him there with a firm hand at the back of his neck, squeezing it every so often to reaffirm that he was still there.

Stiles tried to move —

“Stay. You’re heartbeat’s still wild.”

He stayed. Neither of them spoke. They didn’t need to. Somehow Stiles was pulled in to rest his forehead against the curve of Derek’s shoulder, which wasn’t the most comfortable thing in the world but he accepted the act nonetheless.

“They told me something was wrong,” he rambled, unable to stop himself. “I didn’t know what else to do, so I ran home.”

The wolf was quiet for a moment before speaking again, “What told you something was wrong?”

He waited a moment to respond. Derek didn’t urge him beyond his limit, just waiting until he was ready to speak. “I was at Dorianne’s and the pendants were  _ singing,  _ Derek. I’ve never heard them mutter anything above a low murmur and suddenly they were  _ pitch-perfect.” _

“And Dorianne hasn’t been giving them vocal lessons?”

It was moments like this that Stiles wanted to both throttle and thank Derek. The attempts of humor usually got him side-tracked enough to subside his panic. Key word: usually. It wasn’t particularly working now.

Stiles glared hard enough to make Derek frown even deeper than he’d ever seen. 

Dorianne didn’t meddle with the pendants unless absolutely necessary. She’d done research on them and whatever she’d discovered, she came back adamant that, if Stiles dared, he could be the one to check on them every few months. Derek knew that.

“You didn’t hear them, Derek. It was — I’ve never —”

Derek squeezed the back of his neck. “I get it.” 

The tug pulled him back to the ground, to the room, to Derek. He took another deep breath.

He let himself just sit there and do absolutely nothing. He focused on his breathing, the hard surface of the floor that was rough under his fingers, the small circles that Derek drew on the nape of his neck with his thumb, the fact that the werewolf was now sporting a serious beard that resembled something of a pirate but not as startling as Black Beard’s —

And he lost his moment of peace with the shift of his mind.

Now, he was restless. His foot started to tap against the ground in an inconsistent one-three-two beat while his fingers drummed a four-two-six finger solo. “Can I move now? Derek — Oop!”

Derek single-handedly draped Stiles across his shoulder in a more-werewolf-than-fireman carry. He didn’t object — rather, he couldn’t. Not with the sight of Derek’s ass so close to his face. He may never get the chance to be this close again in three of his life-times. He did let out a weak, “I’m not an invalid, Derek,” before being ceremoniously dropped on the couch.

The wolf immediately pointed a stern finger at him. The half-raised, quirked eyebrow did nothing to reassure his seriousness. It was definitely the beard. “Don’t even think about moving. I’ll make dinner.”

“It’s my night —”

“You can have tomorrow.” And that was the end of the discussion.

So Stiles sat there, arms crossed and staring holes into the back of Derek as he moved around the kitchen, pulling out things from the cupboards and pantry. He thought he saw a familiar flash of orange and stood to investigate —

The man  _ growled.  _

He sat back down. “Were you raised by wolves or something?”

The tense line of Derek’s shoulders eased as he turned over his shoulder to glare. “Do you want food or not?”

“I guess,” he muttered.

Don’t get him wrong. Derek was an  _ excellent  _ cook. He made casseroles and used the crock-pot — which Stiles didn’t know they owned until recently. When he barbecued, it was as though he’d died and gone to heaven. After the first time that Derek had flaunted his cooking skills, Stiles teased him about wolf mating behaviors and  _ providing  _ and the werewolf nearly stabbed him with the grill prod.  _ ‘We don’t do that,’  _ he’d told him, but Stiles countered,  _ ‘Then what do you do,’  _ and the wolf had turned suspiciously quiet for the rest of the day. Stiles loved to tease him about it, trying to get the real information out of him.

On the other hand, Stiles was only as good as the instructions were on the back of the box or detailed online videos. He’d probably burn cereal again if he was left alone in the kitchen. He tended to stick to the four main food groups: cereal, mac-n-cheese, spaghetti, and peanut butter sandwiches. He was planning on making —

“Mac-n-cheese.” Stiles gaped as a warm bowl was pushed into his hands, followed by a separate plate of cut vegetables because Derek wasn’t a complete savage. There were even small cuts of hot-dogs included, moreso for Derek’s benefit, but Stiles liked it nonetheless. 

The wolf nudged at his side, pushing him over some to accommodate for his own space on the edge of the couch where he normally sat. He queued up an episode of  _ Psych  _ that they had already seen, where Shawn outsmarted Lassiter and his lie-detector machine. It was easy, really. Stiles could do it — had already done it.

Despite the werewolf’s efforts, his normal appetite hadn’t quite gotten back into order. He noticed it with the shuffling around of the last stray pieces of hotdog floating in his bowl alongside attached macaroni. He knew he should be eating all of it, but that part of his mind was silent.

When Derek stood, then looked from Stiles to his bowl, the witch willingly gave the wolf his food and settled into the crack of the couch missing the warmth of the space beside him.

He noticed that as well. They seemed to orbit each other closer than they had done originally. Not that the witch minded. Derek was a great friend and an even better werewolf. He’d claim it to the heavens and the powers above if the wolf needed to believe it — which he didn’t. The wolf had only said to him,  _ get off the damn roof, Stiles. _ He had. Eventually. 

Stiles recollected himself with the sound of the cabinets closing and there was still no sign of Derek by his side.

“Derek?”

Derek pulled off his shirt in one quick yank from the back. Stiles still didn’t understand how he could do that. Supposedly it was a “man” thing to do while the alternative was to do the arm cross and pull over the front, which was a “woman’s” thing. Stiles could do neither. He had trouble putting on pants let alone taking off any piece of clothing. 

“What are you doing?”

The man glared at him, then went for the button and fly of his pants.

“If this is an attempt to make me feel better, I’m not really in a strip-tease sort of mood —” His face was smacked entirely with a shirt that was undeniably Derek. “Really?”

His only answer was the soft shift in the air and the faintest sounds of puffing.

“Derek? Are you —  _ oomf!” _ Stiles bent forward at a new, incredibly large weight settled across his lap. He ripped off the shirt to find the wolf fully-shifted and plopped on him with his arms stretched forward in a relaxed lounge. 

“Well now how am I supposed to get up?”

Derek’s eyes in his full-shift were just as, possibly even more-so, expressive than his human ones. They were the same shade of pale green, which looked odd with the dark fur. He even glowered the same.

Stiles could still read him all the same. “I’m not supposed to — How funny. You’re hilarious.”

Derek gave a curt nod but kept his gaze on Stiles.

Stiles bopped the werewolf between his eyes since he couldn’t appropriately bump their shoulders together. “Thanks.”

The wolf glowered further. He caught the faintest flash of his canines, felt more than heard a growl, but Stiles knew better than his charades.

“Yeah, yeah. You’re apex predator here.”

Derek eased back, settling his head on his outstretched paws. 

With the large expanse of Derek’s back at his disposal, Stiles carefully slipped his hands through his fur. One of his ears twitched, but that was the only sign that he acknowledged the act. No barks of opposition was a good note in his book, so Stiles kept carding his fingers down his back. 

His fur was actually really smooth. He’d half expected something more rugged and rough, as though he hadn’t taken a bath in an extended period of time. It reminded him of Derek’s human hair. What if the shift was merely an extension of Derek’s other attributes, so when he was a wolf, the fur was actually just his hair copy-and-pasted everywhere over his body. Stiles mentally snorted at the idea. 

He felt the slightest vibration in his legs, thinking it was his phone before he realized that it was  _ Derek.  _ Derek was making that vibration — purring.  _ He was purring.  _ Stiles couldn’t believe it.

He’d never imagined this happening, albeit it was on accident, but now that Stiles saw this new side of him it was like finding the missing piece to a puzzle. It made sense to the picture of Derek, even if he’d only been doing this for a few weeks.

“You’ve gotten better at this.”

The wolf didn’t budge. His head did tilt slightly towards the sound of Stiles’ voice.

“You know, I always wanted a dog and now that you can full-shift — No — Derek, come back — I was kiddin —  _ Don’t bite me. Bad dog —” _

Needless to say, Stiles slept soundly that night.

Derek insisted that they get out of the house. The man was determined to convince Stiles that nothing was wrong and going to the market was a perfectly safe thing to do. Regardless, Stiles couldn’t deny the piercing look of his eyebrows and the fact that if he didn’t go then Derek would go alone. And he didn’t want that.

He tried to ignore the fact that the wolf was  _ beaming  _ at his decision. 

“You’re carrying the bags, then,” Stiles also decided, slapping the collection of reusable totes into the wolf’s chest, and a silent purr echoed in its wake. Stiles smirked, but didn’t comment further.

The market was okay. Meeting new people was always good, and Stiles always left with a new piece of advice he could throw at Derek if he said something especially snarky. The food looked exactly like it did in the store, but Derek, ever the ‘ _ food-expert’  _ claimed the marketplace was ‘ _ better’.  _ Stiles had already lost several arguments whenever he brought up his obsession with healthier food, but he was determined to win at least one of them.

Currently, Stiles was stuck on the various honey being offered at four different tents. One claimed to be organic, another had  _ ‘farm friendly’  _ on their jars, and the other two had variations of the phrase ‘ _ made by bees’.  _ Wasn’t all honey made by bees? Stiles was confused, and therefore made it his mission to make Derek confused as well.

“It’s just a marketing strategy,” the wolf tried to deter him.

“ _ I get that.  _ It just doesn’t make sense. That makes me even more suspicious of their honey  _ and  _ everyone else’s!”

Derek carefully led them both towards the back end of the lot, where the more pricey, yet  _ ‘best’  _ food was. The man knew them all by name, of course, that frequent-flyer of a shopper. Stiles did his best to introduce himself and survey the produce without gaping at the price difference per pound.

He left Derek with his  _ ‘new friends’  _ — Stiles has always reminded him of this — and wandered with his curious eye over to a herbs and spices table with a sale sign. Not that there was much of a sale, but he was drawn in nonetheless.

Stiles picked up a jar of allspice when he felt it.

Someone was watching him —  _ had been following him _ .

It was like a passing breath against the back of his neck and a sharp nail dragging down his spine. He wanted to run over to the nearest trash can and gag but also conjure his magic and kick whoever’s ass thought it was clever to stalk someone like him.

He hunched between the two stalls, the neighboring vendor selling something that smelled good in his mind but his stomach still rolled with the pressure building in his head —

“Stiles?” A hand clamped on his shoulder.

Stiles turned and Derek was there, brow creased with worry. 

“Are you okay?” His hand slipped to cup the back of his neck as he’d done the day before. A warm wash of relief soothed his raised hackles.

“Fine now.”

“I’ve got everything I need,” he said with a lift of a now full tote.

Stiles gave a shakey, but determined-to-be-steady nod. “Okay.”

He noticed that Derek noticed something was off with him. It was like a switch had been turned.  _ Protect. Tend to.  _ The wolf kept himself close to the witch, yet pushed his way through the crowd with Stiles practically plastered to his back. The wolf didn’t say a single word about it. His heartbeat stayed calm and prominent beneath the witch’s hand, grounding him like a tethered balloon.

When they got home, the wolf stayed silent. Stiles helped put away the groceries, spacing out in the middle and running into the fridge door with a muttered apology to the inanimate being. He couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was still out there, waiting and watching him.

Derek ushered him towards his bedroom, saying something about being able to do a simple thing like groceries by himself, and Stiles wanted nothing more than to just break down and lie in the middle of the kitchen floor. He made sure to brush past the wolf, muttering a soft, “Thanks, for today,” before shuffling off to bed for an early night.

Stiles was right. Needless to say, he was right the majority of the time and most of those times required a taunting dance and the  _ I Told You So  _ song — it did not include now.

“What’s wrong?” Stiles asked as soon as he walked into the living room after a solid six hours passing while working in the apothecary — and not even noticing it — and saw Derek standing next to the back door with his leather jacket on.

The jacket had been his father’s and ever since he’d passed it’d been a coping mechanism for the wolf. It was large, larger than necessary. It hung from his shoulders and engulfed the total massiveness to make him appear smaller. 

After a beat, he said, “Nothing.”

“Derek,” he urged.

Derek pushed right back. “Stiles.”

They were going to get nowhere, he could already tell. The walls of Derek’s personality were thrown sky-high, topped with barbed wire and red lights blaring. He didn’t need to see his wolf to know that his hackles were raised. The witch turned to go back to the apothecary, then stopped mid-stride. 

“You’d tell me? If something was wrong?”

“Yes,” he said this time, without any hesitation.

Stiles nodded and turned to leave yet again, and stopped with the brisk call of his name. “Stiles.”

He pivoted back to ask  _ what  _ and Derek was  _ right there _ — shoving his hand into his face, his hair, his neck. Derek didn’t leave an inch that wasn’t touched by him. Even the back of his ears, which were turning pinker by the second.

The witch gulped. “Feel better?”

The wolf looked over every said inch before nodding.

Instead of hightailing it out of the living room, Stiles kept him there by doing the same thing, rubbing his wrists into the crooks of his neck and slightly behind his ears. The edge of his beard was surprisingly soft and gentle. He could stroke it for hours if the wolf would let him, but that would never happen. He’d never let himself. Stiles settled with two more swipes before nodding to himself as well.

“It’s only fair,” he reasoned with a smirk.

The wolf muttered something, and despite their close distance, the witch still couldn’t understand what he was saying. It didn’t matter. The eyebrows told him everything — and the eyebrows were pleased.

“Go,” Stiles ushered the man back into his spot on the couch. “Read your totally-non-witchy books. They aren’t as good as the real thing, you know.”

Derek settled in his seat and pulled out a nearly disintegrated copy of  _ Harry Potter.  _ “You find me a good witch and then we’ll talk.”

Stiles threw the nearest thing at him, which was his own phone, and the thing just sailed across the room and plunked off the surface of the wolf’s chest like a pea against a brick house. Derek barely raised his eyes over the edge of the book to acknowledge it.

But Stiles knew —  _ he knew  _ that Derek was smirking, trying not to break his stoicism and laugh. After a beat, he stalked over and picked up his phone — along with his ego — and went back to his apothecary with the soft chuckled of the wolf following him.

It was just enough to get him through the rest of the day.

Despite their best efforts, the feeling still lingered.

Stiles couldn’t sleep.

Derek found him hunched over the kitchen counter, staring beyond the stone-cold cup of coffee in his hands like it wasn’t even there.

They were both wearing their coping mechanisms. The leather jacket was creased in a way that Derek had obviously slept in it last night, as had Stiles in his own signature red hoodie that he’d kept in a special box in his closet for moments like this. The last time he’d worn it, it was when he’d left for college. It felt like a lifetime ago.

Neither of them wanted to come out and say that there was something wrong, but Stiles could see the dilemma slowly forming in front of him. Stiles couldn’t prove that there was someone following him or tormenting him in some way. His father was adamant when he was in the force that evidence was the only way to prove either-or to a story. And if Stiles wasn’t speaking, then Derek had jack-squat as well.

“We’ll figure it out,” Derek said into the silence. 

Stiles hadn’t even said anything aloud, even accidentally, and the man was still able to read him like one of his books. It infuriated him, a soft flicker of warmth blooming in his chest.

“Come on.”

He let him be dragged to the couch. Derek didn’t shift and sit on him again, but there was a different comfortable weight and warmth to his side that was enough for him. The wolf cued up another episode of  _ Psych  _ while settling himself in for the rest of the unforeseeable day. He didn’t get to figure out who stole Lassiter’s car.

Stiles woke up to Derek’s jacket draped over his shoulders and said-wolfman closing the back door and pulling his shirt over his head.

“Find anything?”

The wolf sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “Nothing.”

The back of Stiles’ neck tingled in response. He refused to touch it, but something in him desperately wanted to. He did get to his feet to inspect the wolf — two heads are better than one, he’d like to believe — and the man eased his rising panic with a quick clasp and squeeze to the back of his neck. Stiles practically melted. He just hoped his knees hadn’t actually buckled.

“Everything’s fine.”

_ Everything’s fine.  _ That’s exactly what someone said when all Hell was going to break loose.

_ Everything’s fine,  _ the witch told himself anyway.

_ Everything’s fine. _

Everything was fine for the next day. The stiff coldness still rattled his bones every so often, but the witch managed as best as possible. He’d gotten several of his own experiments done with minimal damage. They were down three lightbulbs — as opposed to the average thirteen — and Derek was out a couple of socks. Stiles wasn’t even sorry for that.

He was trying to get the rest of the soot out of his hair while walking to the living room.

“Derek, did you want to go —” Stiles turned around the wall to the living room and the wolf was stretched out on the couch and positively  _ out.  _ Apparently, he wasn’t the only one that didn’t get enough sleep.

Derek twitched slightly, shifting and turning to the source of the noise. Stiles stopped him with a hand on his shoulder and a reassuring squeeze. “Go back to sleep.”

The wolf shifted, turning into the warmth of his hand. His not-purring rumbled just barely loud enough for Stiles to catch. He placed his hand over the center of his chest and the feeling vibrating up his arm and into his own chest, warming his sternum to the tips of his ears. He instead busied his hands into the depths of his pockets, picking at the lint and goldfish crumbs that he was always able to find in each of his jeans for some reason.

Stiles went back to the shop. He apologized to Dorianne for his behavior earlier, which didn’t trouble the woman as much as the look on his face when he bolted from the place. 

He could hear them long before he ever reached the door to the back room. Their noises were nearly deafening as soon as the line was broken. With each step that Stiles took into the room, they got faster and faster until they stopped. Stiles stood frozen in the center of the room.

From his right, he could hear a faint whisper of what might have been a word. Each amulet did the same. Stiles tried to decipher what they were saying by getting close but that didn’t help.

_ Madadh-allaidh.  _ That meant nothing to him.

_ Blaidd.  _ He moved on.

_ Vuk. Farkas.  _

_ Loup. Lobo.  _

Stiles froze. Everything did, except for the amulet right beside his ear. 

_ Lupus.  _

_ Wilk.  _

Simultaneously, the amulets said a single word:  _ Wolf.  _

He ran.

Derek was missing.

_ Derek was missing.  _

There was no sign of him in the house or any indication that he’d been moving around in a while. The stacks of books beside the couch were knocked over.  _ Harry Potter  _ was slapped open on the ground without so much as a bookmark or a dog-ear — which Derek would never do regardless, let alone let one of his books splayed out on the ground.

Stiles stalked to the kitchen and picked up a straw. He blew a long breath as he spun in a tight circle around the living room. A purple spray spread across the room, turning gold then blue as it warped and took the familiar shape of Derek next to the recliner.

“Derek,” he exhaled.

The image of Derek shifted, showing fragments of different points of time all at once. He could see him sleeping, then turning slightly, then sitting upright. But it wasn’t… right. There was something too rigid and formal about the way that the wolf moved. 

Derek moved to the back door, opened and closed the door behind him, and left for the woods in a straight line at a consistent pace.

It wasn’t him. It was something else.  _ Someone  _ else.

Needless to say, Stiles was  _ pissed.  _ No one came into his home and took his… Derek. No one messed with Derek. Period.

Stiles didn’t care about what state he left the house in. That didn’t matter.  _ Derek  _ mattered. Instinct drove him to take off for the woods, sprinting with the ferocity of nature at the tips of his shoes urging him further and faster.

It didn’t take long. It was as though something was there, directing him and pulling him in the right direction, as though a string was tied around his waist and he didn’t know where the other end was connected.

Now he did: “Derek.”

Derek was standing there.  _ Just standing.  _ Nothing about him seemed to be moving. He reached out his hand to make sure the wolf was still breathing.

Nothi —  _ There it was.  _ The smallest of thumps slammed against Stiles' hands as though it was trying to get to him, tell him that he was still alive, still beating. It was enough for Stiles. He could work with a few beats.

“ _ Derek.  _ It’s me— It’s me!” The witch laid his forehead against his sternum, then whispered, “It’s me.”

“You’re different.”

Stiles jerked at the sound. There weren’t many things that startled him anymore. That’d gone away in high school and living on a Hellmouth. Bad things and bumps-in-the-night were a typical Tuesday for his hometown and his life in general. 

The man standing beside a fallen tree oozed energy. Stiles didn’t need to be a witch to feel the raw power bleeding from the man — if he was a man at all. 

“Why do you want him?’

The man chuckled and cross his arms over his chest. Thick, black lines swirled over his arms, moving and bending into shapes of death and destruction.  _ Sorcerer,  _ Stiles corrected.

“What makes you think that I do? That wolf of his is loud. Instinct overpowers him. You have power. It’s… quite extraordinary.”

“Don’t talk about him like that.”

“Possessive.” The man clicked his tongue. “You take company with him? What’s that like?” 

The sorcerer stepped forward, hollow eyes wide with anticipation. “They’re such peculiar creatures. Of habit. Of other things. Picky. Does he warm your bed? He certainly looks like —”

“Keep your hands off him.”

“You’re in no position to make demands.  _ He’s mine _ .”

Derek moved — and yet he didn’t. It wasn’t the wolf that was in command. Derek’s eyes were void as his body jerked and clawed at the spaces where Stiles used to stand. The witch knew what manipulation magic looked like. It was a doll dancing with too taut of strings and an unstable hand trying to make it move properly.

Stiles moved along with him, taking careful steps and jumps backward. “He’s not anyone’s.”

“Are you certain?”

Derek jerked again, and this time his claws landed a strike against Stiles side. The witch hissed as he turned in response, not properly calculating the steps around him as he stumbled. 

Magic was out of the question. Any spell or conjure would surely hurt Derek rather than the sorcerer himself, and the sorcerer would no doubt flick off any of his charms with a quick turn of his wrist — and he couldn’t even try to redirect his magic towards the sorcerer without first deterring Derek — it was an endless cycle.

The ground itself was trying to make up for the missteps, shifting and trying to aid the witch in his calls, but stopped as the wolf lunged and gripped the witch by the throat.

His other hand dug hit hard into his side, fingers pushing into his skin hard enough to leave bruises and his claws digging deeper, drawing blood. The hand around his neck did the same.

“I don’t mean to harm you. This could be so much easier. Should you cooperate.”

Stiles tried to move, but as he did so did Derek. His claws dug in deeper and the sorcerer tsked.

“This could get very messy. All I want is your power, and I will leave.”

The witch didn’t care about the sorcerer anymore. He’d read plenty of comic books in his lifetime to recognize an evil monologue when he heard it. The only difference between the pages of his beloved comics and the present was that there was an obvious price for any of his decisions, and that price was Derek’s life.

“Derek,” he muttered, but he knew the wolf could hear everything. No response came from him. Stiles slipped his hands around Derek’s impaling ones, and cradled his neck and jaw. The wolf just barely  _ twitched.  _

_ There you are,  _ his magic whispered to the wolf.  _ I know you.  _

“Give it to me,” the sorcerer was demanding, screaming like an insolent child that never got what they wanted.

Stiles was nothing if not a people pleaser.

That kernel of warmth that sat in his chest bloomed wider and heated the palms of his hands as well. The witch pressed his forehead hard against Derek’s, using the pain to push forward onto the claws. 

_ “Derek. It’s time to come home now.” _

Something  _ snapped.  _ Derek’s body sagged, wires cut loose and the rest of him rippling in the shock of it. He whined and gasped and panted. “S… St…”

“It’s okay.”  _ Everything’s going to be okay. _

The claws slipped from his body, much to his chagrin. Leaving objects in when they’ve impaled someone is the best course of action, but when those objects are fingers attached to a traumatized living person, then Stiles could see the appeal of the other option.

Derek flinched —  _ flinched  _ when his hands were free, and before the wolf could do something stupid, Stiles latched his hand behind the wolf’s neck and squeezed.

Instantaneously, he relaxed and slumped against the witch in a broken half-swallowed sob.

Something in Stiles  _ cracked.  _

_ Burned.  _

The sorcerer wanted his power — so he was going to get it.

Derek whined. “St-Stiles.”

The witch squeezed again, allowing his hand to ghost beyond the nape of his neck and up into his hairline as well as over the expanse of his shoulders. He relished in the blazing warmth of the werewolf before turning away to face the source of their pain.

The sorcerer’s eyes wouldn’t stand still. They were surveying the land, the possible escape routes. Stiles could count fourteen ways of escaping. For himself. For Derek.

There was only one for the sorcerer.

** _“Did you think you could get away with this?” _ **

The trees answered the echo of his call, pushing and whispering alongside him:  _ Get away. _

The sorcerer snarled. He backed up slowly just as Stiles progressed towards him. The runes on his wrist glowed with power but nothing rose to his fingertips. He snapped, waved, muttered something, and nothing came. Nothing was granted to him.

** _“You tried to take something very important away from me.” _ ** _ Very important. _

The sorcerer turned his back to run, but the trees answered him again. They pulled their roots from the ground and rooted themselves in the rounds of his ankles and the curves of his knees. He fell to the dirt with cries reduced to unadulterated panic. His fingers desperately clung to whatever it could grasp in an effort to escape. 

** _“You are nothing.” _ ** _ Nothing. _

The sorcerer screamed as he turned to ash, mist, dust — nothing.

The trees didn’t allow his screams to echo in their reach. They pushed the wind through the woods, and with the last of the magic out of the air, Stiles collapsed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Check me out over on tumblr as endlesstalesofwonder for more content and drabbles and more!


	5. Magic Maketh Man (Part Two)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles deals with the repercussions of his actions in the woods, and Derek makes a new friend (and other revelations).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is pure fluff, and just a means for me to try and keep moving forward. When it doubt, let the mind run out.

Magical exhaustion was definitely a thing. However, it was frowned upon in the magical community. That didn’t mean that Stiles didn’t actively try to find the limits of what he considered to be ‘exhausting’. It’s gotten him into some strange situations in the past. 

He’d once crashed then woken up in a different part of the house with a different clothing combination. Another time he’d even wound up in the next county over, and boy did that scare the hell out of his father when they’d found out that bit of information.

It would be safe to say that it was the exhaustion that got him standing in the kitchen at five in the morning after sleeping for a full twenty-six hours, with a pot of coffee brewing loudly behind him and his phone in his hand.

It was normal for the witch to be out of sync following a magical trauma, especially one as large as the one that Stiles had created in the forest. If anything, twenty-six hours was hardly enough time to recharge and get back into action —

“Stiles.” 

Oh. Derek. He had a roommate. He almost forgot. 

Being the more considerable and friendly roommate, he offered coffee to the man by gesturing vaguing to the brewing pot behind him. The man didn’t dare move a muscle. He didn’t even blink. It was a vacant, yet drilling stare into the center of his chest. Stiles absentmindedly scratched at the same spot on his chest.

“What?”

His eyebrows rose, eye flickered downwards for a split moment before returning upwards with a rather unimpressed look.

Stiles looked down too —  _ Fuck.  _ He’d completely forgotten about his newest post-exhaustion go-to outfit: a single green sock on his right foot and an orange one on his right. And nothing else.  _ Nothing. _

“I’m going to — Yeah.”

Derek nodded, echoing the word as well. “Yeah.”

Despite the awkwardness, he still wasn’t moving and Derek wasn’t blinking, nor was he looking away.

“Stiles.”

“On it,” he finally said with a shuffle. 

In contradiction to any claims made against him, Stiles did not flail or scramble to make his way to his bedroom to put on a decent outfit. He was the picture of calm and composed with an overdose of pure panic. Controlled panic.

He swore the entire time he was pulling pants on, thankful that he’d finally put wards around his bedroom a few weeks ago to make sure it was soundproof. Especially when one of his pant legs gets itself knotted around his ankle and caused him to fall over onto the ground.

He made it back downstairs to the kitchen in record time. It was then that the exhaustion hit him again, full force. He slumped against the counter with his sheer will-power to keep him upright. Derek carefully slid a cup into his reach. The soft aroma of mint enveloped him; tea.

Tea was his go-to for a magical boost when his internal well was depleted. There was nothing better than a nicely brewed cup of tea — well, nothing other than his 80-20-coffee. But caffeine was not his friend in situations like this, as both men have learned. 

Stiles took a sip, then went to take another as Derek turned the stove on and slipped on the apron he’d gotten him on one of his impulse-shop-runs that read:  **Magic Man, Magic Food. ** Stiles found it funny at the time — and he still did. Derek threw something into the pan and it sizzled to life.

None of them said anything as the food first sizzled and popped. Stiles mindlessly ran his finger around the rim of his cup.

Derek turned, brow pinched and immediately finding his mug. “Shouldn’t you be taking it easy?”

“What do you mean?” Derek pointedly looked from his eyes to the mug as though screaming:  _ look down.  _ He did and found the contents of his mug spinning in the same soft circle that his fingers were making around the rim. “Oh. I didn’t realize…”

He stopped his ministrations and watched as the tea continued to spin until it eventually slowed to a stop. When he looked back up, the food was cooked and Derek was frowning.

Oh no. 

That was his  _ you’re-about-to-get-a-lecture  _ look. Stiles didn’t particularly like that look, especially when it had to do with any serious topic.

“Do you want to talk about what happened?”

That was the thing with Derek that made Stiles want to bang his head into a wall while simultaneously curl up in their spot on the couch. Derek never demanded information or forced discussions. He had done it in the early days of their roommate-relationship, when they were strictly Derek and Stiles instead of  _ DerekandStiles.  _

He’d never admit it, but Stiles was proud of how far Derek had come since that time. 

The witch, rather than answering directly, tapped his finger against the side of the mug in a random succession of beats.  _ Three-one-four-one-two-four-three-two  _ — Derek’s hand clasped over his.

“What’s there to talk about?”

It’s not that he didn’t want to talk about it. It was… Stiles had no clue what to even talk about. He could remember fleeting moments and flashes of feelings, but it was instinct that drove him into the woods, got Derek, fought against the sorcerer. There was very little to tell in his mind at least.

Derek’s lips thinned and the door of discussion was officially closed.

They talked without talking. Derek got Stiles another cup of tea and Stiles shoveled a literal pile of food onto the wolf’s plate. Derek nearly bit Stiles’ hand when he tried to steal a piece of bacon off, but still let him. When they were done, Stiles glared Derek into submission to assure the wolf that, yes, he could walk to the sink without collapsing. 

Derek glided into the space beside him, drying as Stiles washed the dishes, and it was like they were back into their normal rhythm of life. A chord plucked softly in Stiles’ chest at the thought, reminding him that they would have to talk about the prior events eventually. 

He’d do it. Soon.

As Stiles made to retreat back to his bedroom for a well-deserved nap, the wolf called out to him as soon as he’d settled on the couch. “When did you get a tattoo?”

One foot on the bottom step, Stiles froze and his body shuddered. “It’s not a tattoo.”

“Then what is it?”

The witch smiled, soft and wary, at the wolf. “Don’t worry about it.”

He could feel the wolf’s eyes on the back of his neck the whole way up the stairs until he was lying in his own bed and taking a few more needed hours of rest.

Stiles was restless.

It had nothing to do with his magical exhaustion. After nearly ninety hours of sleep, he was ready to go for the next Big Bad — not that he was encouraging anything to start stirring up trouble for the sake of his newfound health.

He should have known better when Derek finally got a good look at his mark. He was usually better about keeping it contained. Rather than sitting on the surface of his skin, the mark would sit deep in the center of his chest, snuggled tight and warm under his sternum unless it was called forth for dire emergencies. It must’ve been knocked loose and risen to the surface of his skin following the incident in the woods.

_ Damn Sorcerer. _

One morning when Derek was at the market, he’d stripped and stepped in front of the mirror to inspect his mark now encompassing his entire torso and shoulder. It didn’t take the shape of anything in particular — not at the moment. It felt as though it was a warm blanket of pure shadow draped over him. Watching. Learning.

Unfortunately, that meant it directed all of its attention to Derek. Upon the newfound attention from the wolf, it was on the verge of leaping off his skin and running around the house for any kind of appreciation or special treatment. 

The witch eventually caved and allowed it some freedom from his skin; only barely. It started with letting him have a few minutes to stretch out in the apothecary in the shape of a small cat. The next day, it was a fluttering owl on the perch of his desk lamp. With each time, the minutes turned to hours which then turned to a full day, and then — 

“What was that?”

Derek stood, frozen, between the junction of the living room and the front foyer. A dishtowel was thrown haphazardly over his shoulder and suds slowly slipped from his elbows.

“What was what?”

The wolf glared.

His gaze cut through him like it always did. Stiles always wanted to blurt out his deepest darkest secrets as the glare intensified, almost turning his insides into molten pliable jelly—

“My  _ shade.  _ It’s a—” Sitles paused to get the right word.  _ Familiar  _ wasn’t entirely accurate. Familiars were creatures that were either assigned or found that stood beside the witch as a guardian or friend. His  _ shade  _ wasn’t assigned nor found. He was forged by Stiles' own desperate hands. 

Regardless, his mouth moved faster than his brain and supplied, “Familiar?”

Derek raised his eyebrows in disbelief.

Stiles sighed and raked his fingers through his hair, unable to stop his lips from moving. “It can take on different shapes depending on what it likes and what I need for a given situation. Dog, cat, lizard. He turned into a fire drake for all of three seconds before nearly setting my bedroom curtains on fire, but it’s the closest thing to a dragon that I’m ever going to get —” His father’s face after that incident haunted him. It was when he’d started to learn how to control his abilities instead of using them dutifully. “—Its favorite seems to be a wolf and I’m starting to think it likes you a lot more than it does me —”

“Stiles.” Derek was glaring harder. Stiles could only pant for the sudden loss of breath from that rapid train of thought.

He gave a wobbly thumbs up.

“If it starts tearing up the couch, you’re replacing it.”

“It’s not an actual —” Derek turned away, and the rest of the words turned silent. “Fine.”

After getting the metaphorical seal of approval from Derek, his  _ shade,  _ Mischief, was a more prominent figure moving about the house. And despite his first assessment, Mischief was an absolute gentleman. 

He didn’t leave any prints from when he’d trot around the garden. The dirt couldn’t stick to him anyway, since he was made of mist and shadow. He never associated himself with the couch in question, not to sit nor claw at. Stiles would say that Derek was rather impressed. Especially since he’d started treating him like a living creature rather than a sentient object.

Stiles had gotten home after going out to the store and the  _ shade  _ immediately burst from his skin and sped off to the kitchen where Derek was no doubt cooking something. He tossed his keys into the bowl and kicked off his shoes mindlessly, only to tuck them back into place when Mischief returned to growl at him. He then trailed after the canine towards the smell of food.

“What’s cooking?”

“Spaghetti.” The man shrugged. “It’s all we got.”

“You made meatballs too?”

He nodded.

_ Yes.  _ Even Mischief was panting and moving his tail so violently that the witch thought he’d take off into the air.

_ “So needy,”  _ Stiles sighed as Mischief circled Derek for attention while he somehow managed to move around the kitchen without fault.  _ Werewolf.  _

Mischief faded out as the two men sat at the table and enjoyed their meal. It was easier for Stiles to focus when he wasn’t split in two. Besides, he’d been craving Derek’s handmade meatballs — some sort of Hale Secret Recipe that Stiles had been trying to pry from him for months. He savored it all. The food, that is.

The next day, the witch busied himself fulfilling the same orders that he always made at the beginning of the month for his regulars. A treatment for arthritis; a cream for reversing hair loss; serum for a certain lack of performance. It was routine at this point.

However, Stiles nearly dropped the vial in his hand when a sudden warmth ghosted onto his chest and jaw. 

That had never happened before. 

He barely got the vial back into the holder before another spot bloomed on his throat, then behind his ears. They felt exactly like —

Stiles walked out of his apothecary and found them in the living room.

Derek was petting his  _ shade.  _ Mischief was practically putty in the wolf’s hands, purring, no doubt, and curling into every touch and graze he could get.

“Are you alright?”

“Fine.” The witch swallowed. He wouldn’t let his words falter with the wolf, nor let his heartbeat give everything away. He twitched his nose to ensure it. It didn’t stop the heat from flowing straight to his face. “Have you seen my phone?”

He shook his head.

“Thanks.” The witch returned to his work-space, hunching over and turning his shoulder just slightly to get the right spo— There it was. He sighed. “Found it.”

The wolf sent back a soft grunt, but didn’t stop his ministrations for another minute before stalking off and closing his office door. The  _ shade  _ dissipated again, settling comfortably under Stiles’ sternum, curled up and perfectly content with the world. He’d deny any claims of a purr pouring from his chest, but even a human would be able to sense the lie.

Stiles was beginning to get used to the touches. The wandering touches had stopped soon after Derek’s first interaction with his  _ shade.  _ They now stayed in his hairline, the back of the head, and his shoulders. 

He was trying to do research for a client, but Derek was not helping. The wolf was sitting on the back porch with the _ shade  _ on his lap, a book in one hand and the other steadily stroking the same path down the length of his back. The warmth was so soothing that the computer screen began to swim into a soft white glow before he was out like a light.

He woke up later that evening on his bed with the knitted blanket drawn over his shoulders.

“How does it work,” Derek finally asked him one day when Stiles was plucking the leaves he needed for a hex bag from the small planter box Derek had made in the backyard. He nods to the  _ shade,  _ but the witch already knows what he’s talking about.

He’d been dreading this moment for weeks. The other shoe had to drop eventually. He thought he’d have a little more time to prepare himself for the inevitable metaphorical door slam to the face.

“We have an agreement.” He plucked another leaf. Then another. “Think of it as a two-way street: he’s a part of me and I’m a part of him.”

Derek loosed a contemplative hum, looking back down at the  _ shade  _ that was looking intently back at him. He started curling his fingers under the ear in just the right spot — 

He couldn’t help it. Stiles turned his head and exposed his throat at the same time as the  _ shade.  _

“Stiles.”

He blinked, resettling himself as a hot wave washed over him. Derek’s eyes were just as wide, open and all-knowing, then completely shut down. The sterling blue glow of his eyes burned as they snapped towards the tree line. Even Mischief stood at attention next to the werewolf, hackles raised.

A low growl came from both wolves. The  _ shade  _ took the chance to step in front of Stiles as the pungent smell of electricity filled the air. He could taste it in the back of his throat, making his face twist into a sour frown.

The electricity rose and suffocated the air before dissolving. The yard was left in stunned silence.

“That was anticlimactic,” Stiles muttered.

He started to turn back towards the house when a crow burst from the trees, beelining for the house with the velocity of sound — and Mischief did the same, charging towards the bird. The  _ shade  _ grew and grew with each pounding step towards the bird until he was nearly the height of Stiles’ sternum.

Large chunks of the ground flew from beneath his paws as he thundered forward. Then he stopped, paws rooting themselves deep into the ground where it was impossible to tell where the ground started and his  _ shade  _ ended. 

The crow, however, didn’t stop. It flew until it suddenly couldn’t, slamming into an invisible barrier equivalent to where Mischief had planted himself. It tried again and again before squawking and flying back into the trees. 

Mischief waited, looking to its magical counterpart for an order of sorts to follow.

Stiles shook his head, brushing with the soft fabric of Derek’s shirt. He paused, not realizing he’d slotted himself behind Derek, nor did the werewolf realize either. Neither one of them moved with the new information.

Mischief shook himself clear of the ground and trotted back. He paused to push the loose pieces of dirt back into their holes as a makeshift solution before circling the two men. He pushed himself a little harder into Derek’s leg, reminding the wolf that he was there.

They stood there for what seemed like forever. Stiles counted seven impossibly calm werewolf heartbeats before the man shifted away slightly. Both witch and  _ shade  _ tried to cover up the slight sting that the small distance created.

“What was that?”

“Don’t look at me.” He tossed up his hands in defense. “Just because it’s magic, doesn’t mean I automatically know about it.”

The wolf exhaled a noncommital hum, crouching low to stay at eye-level with the  _ shade.  _ Mischief didn’t waste a single breath before he was there, demanding the attention and praise that Derek was still willing to give. 

He started small, brushing his hand over the top of Mischief’s head, and then scratched both sides of his jaws with both hands.

Instead of focusing on the pseudo-warmth of Derek’s hands, Stiles focused on one of his nails that’d gotten chipped somehow. It might have been when he was picking the leaves or when he was practicing his sigils on the surface of his desk a few days ago, but it might have been thanks to one of his horrible habits of just gnawing on the nail when he was in one of his thinking spirals, like the one he was in right now —

The heat of Derek’s touch was stronger, seeping into his bones rather than just sitting on the surface of his skin. 

“Stiles.”

Derek was right there in front of him, no longer bent low for his  _ shade.  _ It was  _ his  _ hands on  _ his  _ face. Directly. No magical transference needed. 

Stiles could see every last detail of Derek’s face. He could count all the soft laugh lines curled next to his eyes, and knew where and when each of them had come from. Stiles could proudly say that he was cause for ninety-nine percent of them. His beard was longer and full, but desperately needed some sort of trim, now that he was thinking about it. He could see two smaller patched of lighter hair — dare he say, gray? He wanted to kiss them each and demand some sort of praise that he has any at all —  _ Sweet Heavens,  _ was he always this beautiful?

The wolf’s hands cupped his face, drawing mindless circles over his jawline and cheeks with his thumbs like he was some sort of treasure. “No research tonight.”

And he snapped back into place, standing a little bit taller and not quite as boneless as his limbs wanted to be.

“What—”

“—Don’t even think about it. You need to rest.” He looked down at the  _ shade  _ and added, “You too.”

“I’m perfectly fine,” he whined, covering Derek’s hands with his own and taking them just to hold. “I think I’ve slept plenty.”

“Where are you right now?”

And Stiles thought he was the one with the wild mind. “Outside.”

“Wrong.”

Stiles rolled his eyes and found that they  _ were  _ no longer outside. There was a bookshelf and the tv and their couch — when had they gone inside? He tried to piece it together. It wouldn’t be the first time that he’d been lead somewhere in the middle of one of his spirals. 

“Sleep.”

“I’m not tired.”

“Book or movie?” He asked while leading Stiles further into the house and pushed the witch onto the couch. Stiles watched him shuffle into the kitchen and start making tea.

“Movie.”

Stiles knew that if he listened to Derek read, then he’d just prove the wolf’s point. If he could stay awake to marathon the entire Star Wars series, then he could handle a single movie on HBO.

Derek came back with two mugs, setting them down on the coffee table before taking his own seat beside Stiles and covering them both with their favorite knitted blanket.

He was a goner, he already knew it. 

Derek next to him, plus the blanket and tea, was a recipe for disaster. Derek queued up the HBO channel,  _ Six Days and Seven Nights  _ already playing from the point when they’d crashed on the island.

In the first ten minutes, he’d finished his tea and pressed further into the warmth of Derek’s side with no opposition from the wolf. If anything, there was a small noise that Stiles could only label as a half-swallowed purr. He smirked and kept his eyes forwards.

At twenty minutes, he cracked. He could feel Derek’s shoulder under his cheek but his eyes were still heavy and the proximity of Derek had his woodsy scent sinking further and further into the clutches of sleep. “That day in the woods…”

The wolf moved his head, tilting an ear downwards.

“I can’t explain it. You were gone, and all I knew was that I needed to get you back. No matter what.”

The man was silent, so silent that Stiles had thought that he’d finally fallen asleep. The wolf exhaled and Stiles sank with him, curling in further.

“Thank you for finding me.”

With the black edges of sleep filling his eyes, Stiles smiled and whispered, “Anything for you.”


	6. Home of the Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Through a mouthful of pizza, Stiles tried to start talking, stopped, then started again, “I had a thought—” Derek quickly cut him off with a sharp glare. “I swear it’s a good one this time!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has been a long one in the making, but in honor of my university's spring break: here we go!

It was nagging him all afternoon. He couldn’t even think straight. There were three separate books open at different pages, his laptop and a second monitor split six web pages across the screens, and he kept checking the clock on the wall and the one on his phone. He’d pat his back pocket and flip around his phone, fumble with turning on the home screen before returning it to his pocket and doing the whole thing over and over again. 

He did manage to order some pizza without any problems. It did help that their go-to place also knew their go-to order. All he really needed to do was wait. But waiting meant patience, and he had none of that whatsoever. He managed to move to three different locations in the house before settling on the floor in the living room, legs crossed and eyes closed as he slipped into a meditative state.

It helped him connect with the local land. He could feel the trees in the local park swaying to the breeze, the flowers in the backyard dancing, the wolf on the front steps talking to another person.

Stiles opened his eyes as Derek came through the front door, satchel still tight over his chest and tucked beneath the tower of pizza in his arms. He unloaded them all onto the counter and freed himself from his work before turning around and greeting the other man.

“Sorry I’m late.”

The man had been saying that a lot more recently, especially as he was now spending more and more time at the university’s offices and research labs. There was a night that Stiles had stayed awake thinking that he’d be home at a reasonable time and woke up at eight in the morning to him trying to sneak in through the door.

Not to say that it wasn’t worth it. Stiles knew he was pouring his heart and soul into his final thesis. He couldn’t be prouder. There was a tiny, loud part of him that wanted him around more.

Still, Stiles forgave him and ushered him to eat something. While Derek collected them both enough food to feed an army, Stiles relocated to the recliner, tucking his feet under his legs to remain somewhat rooted. The wolf handed over his plate and took his usual spot at the end of the couch and turned on the tv.

Through a mouthful of pizza, Stiles tried to start talking, stopped, then started again, “I had a thought—” Derek quickly cut him off with a sharp glare.

_ Don’t even think about it. _

“I swear it’s a good one this time!”

Something between a scoff and a snort came out of him. Stiles didn’t think to question or even try to argue what it was. “I was thinking… Maybe, we could use the portal to go somewhere.”

Derek made sure to finish chewing his piece before asking, “Somewhere you had in mind?”

“My home. In California. My dad asked me about visiting sometime, and I thought with spring break coming up that you’d—” He looked up from his plate and found the man solely captivated on him with both eyebrows perked upwards. Stiles busied himself with his napkin, although his fingers were as clean as could be, “—you’d like to come. With me. To California.”

“Okay,” was the wolf’s only answer before he turned back to his food.

“Okay?” His brain shot into overdrive. “ _ Okay  _ as in you understand but want nothing to do with it, or  _ Okay  _ as in you’re willing to be subjected to stories about me in high school?”

“Okay,” Derek said in a completely different inflection which gave him absolutely no indication of what answer he meant.

That asshole.

Stiles made sure to throw his last bite of crust at the man — and the wolf just ate it like the animal he was. He forced an unimpressed frown on his face to cover his overwhelming sense of joy.

Stiles added a countdown to the calendar hanging in the kitchen, watching as the numbers dwindled down to when they were going to leave to visit his dad. 

Derek had finally confirmed that he’d agreed to go with him after Stiles practically threatened to tickle the information out of it. Despite the man’s insistent  _ ‘I’m not ticklish Stiles, and there’s nothing you can do about it’,  _ his immediate response made him think that his words didn’t actually mean anything. He made a mental note to come back to that fact after their trip.

He busied himself in worrying about who would be there to water his plants without running away at a moment’s notice. 

“I know someone who’d be available to stop by,” Derek offered from his office.

“Of course you do,” Stiles shamelessly muttered, knowing full well that he could hear him. He left his bottomless bag and walked into the door frame of Derek’s office, leaning into the groove that was permanently left by his body shape from how often he leaned there.

“They wouldn’t… mind?” He gestured to himself and Derek in a general sense of ‘Magic and More’, and the wolf just nodded without even having to look at the witch.

Stiles took plenty of time looking at him. He had his reading glasses on, which never made any sense to him. The man was never straight about the fact and Stiles knew he was never going to be. He wasn’t going to argue either way. He looked like an official scholar — especially with the deep bags under his eyes and the unkept beard. Cover one of the lenses with a patch and he’d look like a proper pirate.

A witch could dream.

Derek worked furiously over his computer, trying to get all his things in order so that he could actually have the time off and not just a pity break where he’d work on the side. It took little convincing, but Stiles promised to stay out of his way while he did so.

“Hand me that file on the wall?”

At first, Stiles looked around for someone else in the room, a familiar or magical being that he wasn’t aware of. Then, after an excruciatingly long minute, the man repeated it again but made intense eye-contact with the witch.

_ He meant me _ , he thought.

“Oh,” he exhaled and cautiously stepped into the room expecting some lightning to strike him on the spot or the wolf to growl at the thought of him in his space. Nothing. He took another and nothing happened. “The yellow one?”

“Blue.”

Stiles hummed, sliding the folder off of the hanging rack with ease, still unsure if this was a test or not. He set it down on the man’s right and opened it for him.

“Thanks,” he muttered, pushing the glasses higher onto his nose.

“No problem,” the witch muttered with the same softness as he paused behind his back, settling a hand on his shoulder while he peered over at his work. Derek didn’t object or make any other annoyed noises, and Stiles wasn’t going to push his luck. He did pause again at the door frame, looking back at the man without so much as a twitch of acknowledgement or outlash. Stiles grinned to himself and silently blessed the frame of the door to encourage him to continue his hard work.

He made sure to text his dad that they were on their way, not particularly mentioning his method of travel, but it wasn’t like his father had asked for the finer details of his life choices. Besides, he didn’t need to give him another reason for a potential heart-attack.

He’d already painted the sigils around the frame of the door. The markings hummed, patiently waiting for Stiles to activate whenever he was ready.

Which he was not.

Space was not an issue with the witch. One of his first spells was learning how to make his bag bottomless (to accommodate for the endless curly fries he could smuggle into movie theatres and boring lectures). Mary Poppins had nothing on him. He just couldn’t figure out  _ what  _ he needed to bring. 

It was: long sleeve versus short sleeve shirts; new converse or his raggedy duct-taped-sneakers; laptop or no laptop; spell book or no spell book. He tossed in his book regardless, but held up two hoodies for five minutes of contemplation.

“You’re being ridiculous,” the wolf said from the door, filling up the space with his leather-jacket-wearing-aviator-tucked-into-the-neck-of-his-shirt self. Stiles hated that he didn’t hate him right now.

“You’re ridiculous,” he countered.

“And yet, only one of us is ready to go.”

Stiles growled at him, but the wolf just huffed. He didn’t  _ understand.  _ It was his father. The man that had raised him and then he had to go off to college and move to the other side of the country. He’s promised that he’d visit, but with school and his work there was little time to do any of that and it took out a piece of his resolve each time he thought about it.

“It’s just your dad.”

_ “Exactly!”  _ He exhaled sharply, sagging but refusing to set the hoodies down. “Did you hear back from what’s-his-face?”

Derek stepped forward, took the hoodies from his hands, and walked back to the closet to hang one back up. He took Stiles’ signature red hoodie from the hanger, knowing it would look good and provide comfort to him, and pushed it into the witch’s chest. The witch’s hand flew up to keep it from falling.

“Jonathan already came by and got the keys —” Stiles opened his mouth to interject, but Derek pushed a little more into his chest and it grounded him from blurting out anything — “Yes, he knows about the ones in the apothecary. And the ones by the sink. He has the packet you graciously printed.”

Stiles muttered under his breath,  _ “Damn right.” _ He even included pictures to make sure he wasn’t confused on which plant to water what. He didn’t need to come back to a house full of complainers.

“Just breathe —” Stiles took a long breath in, synchronizing with Derek’s movements, and exhaled — “You’re going to be fine. It’s not like we’re meeting the Queen of England.”

“Oh my god,” Stiles gasped. “What if she’s there?”

Derek punched him in the shoulder, albeit without the werewolf strength.

“You’re an idiot.” 

And then, between one blink and the next, Derek kissed him. It was as though Stiles’ entire brain restarted and started installing another Windows System Update. It was in an almost-there-but-it-could-be-more kind of way that left Stiles wanting more.

Without stumbling at all, like the punctuated were-being he was, Derek tacked on an equally demanding, “Finish packing,” before leaving the room.

That was all he needed to get moving in the right direction: towards Derek so he could ask him  _ what the hell that was that he just pulled.  _

He stormed to the front door where the man was waiting with his own luggage, scrolling through something on his phone before tucking it away. He got close to him, the door singing all the while, and he was prepared to rip into him and demand some kind of explanation — but nothing came. Instead, he kept staring at him, searching his eyes for answers and flickering down to his lips like they would hold the answers or at least an open invitation to do it again.

“Don’t make it weird.”

“Weird? What’s weird? This is perfectly normal behavior for lil’ ol’ Stiles and I have to say that it is not weird at all — why is it weird for you because if it is then I can totally never talk about it agai—”

“Stiles.”

Stiles sucked in the air he’d pushed out in one go, then blew it back out. “Kiss me again.”

“We’re late.”

“My father’s been waiting a while. He can do it for a little longer.”

“If I knew you were going to be this needy, then I wouldn’t have kissed you.”

“Hey, you knew what you were getting yourself into, buddy.”

Derek exhaled an exasperated chuckle and smiled —  _ he fucking beamed.  _ Stiles wanted to see him do it all the time. He needed to.

“Yeah.” His hand came up and cupped his face, his thumb brushing over the curve of his cheek. Stiles could have melted right there. “I do.”

The kiss was different than before. He’d gotten a small taste in the briefest of passings, but this was a  _ feast  _ in comparison. Stiles threw an arm around his back while the other flew to his waist and pulled the man closer. He could feel his aviators digging into his sternum, but it was for a worthy cause.

It was Derek that pulled away first, chest rumbling a dull purr while he rested their foreheads together. It was also Derek that spoke, “We should go.”

“Do we have to? I could come up with some excuse — hey, maybe we came down with some unknown sickness that needs another person’s body heat to feel better.”

Derek shook his head, pulling back entirely and moving his hands respectively to sit on Stiles’ waist. Whether it was for Stiles’ good or his own, was unknown to him. 

“You’re insatiable.”

“You’re avoiding the question.”

“This isn’t going anywhere.”

“Good.” Stiles nodded, then gestured between them. “Because this isn’t over. I need this to happen. Like full discussion, examples, the whole nine yards.”

“Yes, dear,” Derek hummed, picking up their bags and shouldering them. “Are you ready now?”

“ _ Am I ready?”  _ The witch mocked and pushed up his sleeves like he’d seen in too many movies (but they just rolled right back down afterwards). He muttered the words he’d memorized and touched three of the sigils, each turning a bright blue after he touched them. The entire ring of them started to glow and a soft light poured from underneath the door.

Stiles opened the door and there was nothing but the Between. He extended his hand to Derek. “Hold on tight, okay?”

The wolf nodded and took his hand, squeezing it as confirmation and reassurance. “Always.”

“Let’s do this,” he said, more to himself than anyone else, and stepped through the portal with the wolf in tow.

Good news: the portal works.

Bad news: it’s not very exact in the location choice. In hindsight, when Stiles thought of  _ home  _ he didn’t actually think of his house, but focused on the town itself in general.

Which landed them in the middle of Main Street.

_ “Get the hell out of the street, Bilinsk!” _

Stiles and Derek jerked off the street and onto the sidewalk. Stiles rose a hand in a gesture of good-faith, calling out, “Nice to see you too, Coach.”

Derek gave him a curious look and a raised eyebrow. “Is this a regular occurrence with you?”

“Me standing in the middle of streets, not that much. Me showing up and inconveniencing my old high school gym teacher, yes.”

“Is it too late to look for another roommate?” Derek muttered for Stiles’ own displeasure. He punched the wolf’s shoulder to no avail. The man simply laughed it off and gestured for Stiles to take the lead in the direction that they needed to go.

Living in the small town of Eaden, it wasn’t hard to find out which way was which. Stiles made sure to keep the silence full of his tales and adventures from when he was in high school. How he used to sneak out to go to Darla’s Creamery, jump over the fence that guarded the not-yet-sold property for the movie theatre, and try to break into the library to get a peek at the new collection they’d shipped in.

“How were you never arrested — oh wait.”

Stiles elbowed him. “Ha ha. No. As much as my dad was the sheriff, he was a hardass for making sure I learned my lesson.”  _ Many lessons. Many times.  _

“Sure. And how many restraining orders do you have again?”

“Hey! I told you that in confidence.”

Derek laughed, extending his arm to wrap around Stiles shoulder and pull him closer. He didn’t mind it one bit, and even pressed closer at the opportunity. 

It was nice to be like this with Derek; unguarded and open. He was so relaxed with him around, grounded and whole, despite being so tense beforehand. He was good for him.  _ Great,  _ even _ .  _

When they came up to the house, the porch light was on and the cruiser was in the driveway. Fortunately, the drapes were close in the front room so his dad was flaunting but not outright intimidating. 

“Joy,” he muttered under his breath as the front door opened and his father stepped out. It was another small blessing that he’d changed out of his uniform and into his  _ civvies  _ (which his father would swear up and down that’s not what they called them).

Derek’s hand squeezed his shoulder and dropped it back beside him, ushering them forward with a push to the small of his back.

“Hey, dad,” Stiles greeted, with another one of his little half waves. Derek nudged him and he shuffled forward, pulled immediately into a desperate death hug from his father. He willingly melted into his hold, breathing him in for the first time in a while.

“Son.” His dad clapped his back and pulled back. “You must be Derek.”

“Yes, sir.” Derek stepped up and offered out his hand. The two of them shared a brisk exchange, Stiles internally groaning at the whole interaction. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you. Stiles talks about you all the time.”

An eyebrow perks up. He asks, “Does he?” at the same time that Stiles exhales, “I do not.”

The older Stilinski sighed, but Derek took it as an opening.

“Did you ever manage to fix the back porch overhang?” 

Stiles had mentioned it  _ once,  _ and suddenly the wolf had remembered and brought it up. He had half a thought to take the man down to the courthouse and marry him right there.

“Oh…” His father rubbed the back of his neck. “I’ve been meaning to get around to doing it, hoping to have the time…”

“I can help with that, if you’d like.”

_ Be still my beating heart,  _ Stiles internally screamed, clutching at his bag to make sure his heart wasn’t on overdrive. Derek looked over to him regardless, flickering down to his chest then back to his father like nothing happened.

“I appreciate the sentiment, but you’re supposed to be on vacation, not doing another man’s chores.”

Derek shrugged. “The offer still stands.”

“Why don’t the two of you come inside.”

Stiles scoffed, shouldering his bag up higher and sliding past his father into the house. “So you can continue the interrogation?”

“I don’t think I’ll need to.”

Derek didn’t even try to hide the fact that it made him stand a little bit taller and push out his chest.  _ Preening,  _ he’d describe it as.  _ And  _ he _ was the needy one _ . Stiles bumped his shoulder when Derek entered. His father disappeared into the kitchen, followed by the crack of the fridge being opened.

Before Stiles could open his mouth again, Derek quickly relocated Stiles’ bag into his hands. “Let me.”

“I’m fully capable of carrying my own things.”

“I’m well aware,” Derek muttered all too loudly under his breath, specifically so Stiles could hear him.

Stiles flicked his fingers, sending a sharp pinch of magic to the wolf’s butt, making the man laugh sharply. Derek shuffled up the stairs, no doubt to leave him to get reacquainted with his own father. For that, he was grateful.

“Spare bedroom is to the right,” Stiles’ father added without having to shout. “Though, I’m sure you could have figured that out.”

Stiles chuckled. He’d forgotten just how observant his father was. Then again, he never got away with much in high school, so it’s hard to think that he’d forget at all. He sidled against the other side of the kitchen counter, resting on his hands and focusing on one of his nails that had a small knick in it —

His dad opened a bottle of beer as loudly as possible, taking an equally loud slurp before asking, “How long has this been going on?”

“A year.”

“I meant your relationship with Derek.”

Stiles nodded. “A year. Technically, it started a few hours ago? But it’s probably been longer... I don’t know exactly. It just… happened.”  _ Not to mention the kiss before we got here.  _

“He seems like a nice guy.”

“He really is,” Stiles reaffirmed, looking towards the stairs where the wolf may or may not be waiting until the coast was clear. His magic could sense that he was upstairs in his bedroom. “My magic likes him.”

His dad hummed. “Well then… that says everything.”

_ “Dad,”  _ he hissed, but his father just waved it off with a laugh.

“I’m kidding. Although—”

The stairs creaked unnecessarily loud as the werewolf descended. The leather jacket was gone, as were the aviators, and he looked… comfortable. Welcomed. It already said everything that the house hadn’t kicked him out.

“Anyways, I’m happy you’re back home. Even if it’s for a little bit. I missed you, kiddo.”

Stiles sagged slightly into the warmth that was Derek standing behind him. “I missed you too.”

“Now, I was thinking barbeque for dinner.” His dad looked from him to Derek. 

“That sounds good to me,” Derek mused.

Stiles shoved a finger into the wolf’s side to say,  _ don’t support his unhealthy diet choices,  _ then threw the finger at his father. “You’re lucky I’m in a giving mood.”

His dad looked pointed above him, towards Derek. “I should have you over more often.”

“Hey!” Stiles chirped while Derek chuckled a soft, “Yes, sir.”

“None of that,” his dad waved him off. “It’s John.”

“ _ John,”  _ Stiles mocked, and received a hand towel to the face. 

“Sure thing, John.”

“Just for that,” Stiles added after throwing the towel back at him, “you’re having a nice big salad too.”

His dad put up his hands. “I’ll take what I can get.”

Dinner went well —  _ really _ well. Stiles kept waiting for the other shoe to drop and some Big Bad break through the backyard and demand his first born. Or something. It was actually  _ nice  _ being back home. Relaxing.  _ Being normal.  _ Well, as normal as a werewolf, witch, and sheriff-in-the-know could be. 

His dad had willingly eaten his salad and, per Derek’s recommendation, had a second helping of salad. Meanwhile, Derek was the one that kept the conversation rolling. He asked about his job, the town, his side projects that have been piling up. Somehow, he managed to talk his dad into letting him help with some of them. Stiles kept his eyes on him all night, looking for cues to whisk him off in an attempted rescue — but none came. The wolf only occasionally looked over to him to make sure he was still there or whenever his heart spiked (only because Derek was doing something  _ exceptional —  _ but he didn’t need to know that).

The next day, Derek busied himself with the yard work. He fixed the planter boxes that had sunken during one of the rainy seasons. He even went as far as to plant a few things that he thought his dad would like: basil, lavender, and lettuce (that Stiles’ demanded once he figured out what he was doing). 

The days afterwards were all about fixing the back porch overhang and the squeaking floorboards while wearing nothing but his shorts was the highlight of the week so far. Stiles found himself double and triple-checking random parts of the wards where he could perfectly see Derek working outside, only to duck and hide when he was noticed.

On the last afternoon, they were all hanging out in the kitchen when the so-called  _ shoe  _ dropped.

His father set down his drink and looked over at Derek to state, “You do realize that I am obligated as Stiles’ father to give you a talk —”

“Dad!” Stiles couldn’t stand there and  _ witness  _ his father give the shovel talk. 

He didn’t even so much as turn towards him. “Did you finish the wards?”

“Yes,” he growled out. He’d done so much to the wards that a nuclear strike could happen next door and the house would be fine.

“And the gutters?”

_ No.  _ And the man definitely knew. Stiles paused, then pointed a finger to the conspirators. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing.”

“Never. Now go.”

“Fine,” he huffed and left them to do their  _ Man Thing.  _ He walked around to the garage and got out the ladder, setting it up beside the house to do it by hand because:  _ it’s easier Stiles and the last time you tried to clean the gutters, the pipes were clogged for two weeks.  _ As if that had been his fault.

While he dug through the muck and other things in the gutter, his magic reached out to Derek and his father. Through his mind’s eye he could see the both of them. Derek looked far too relaxed for a shot-gun-shovel talk, but his dad didn’t look too tense either, so he considered it a win.

_ “—wanted you to know that,”  _ his father had just finished saying.

Derek nodded along.  _ “He’s the best thing that’s happened to me.” _

_ “I’m glad to hear that, son. You’re doing some good things for him too.” _

Derek grinned at the thought then looked over — right at Stiles as though he could  _ see him  _ and his eyes flashed blue  _ —  _

Stiles snapped back into his body, jerking himself and nearly falling from the edge of the house. He rooted his arm into the leaves to keep still, even if it meant getting more dirty. “Fucking shit—”

“What are you doing?” the wolf asked, arms crossed over his chest and waiting for the answer that he already knew at the base of the ladder.

_ Werewolves.  _ “Cleaning the gutters.”

Derek wasn’t buying anything that Stiles was throwing him. “By hand?”

“Not all problems need magical solutions.”

“Hmm. And who told you that?”

“Some asshole.”  _ With a stupid smile and a stupid face and a stupidly cute wolf form that could definitely eat him whole. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. _ However, he was his Stupid.

Derek smirked. “I wouldn’t say that.”

“And what would you say?”

“I’d say that that person wouldn’t want to treat you to dinner in the near future.”

“Woah, now let’s not get hasty.”

“It’s done. I think he’s made up his mind.” Derek turned to walk back into the house and Stiles turned after him.

“Wait — No, Derek —” Stiles turned a little too hard, jerking the support from the ladder and teetering backwards. “ _ Derek —” _

Stiles fell from the ladder, letting the thing spin off to the side while he fell into the arms of the wolf below with relative ease. The panic in his stomach instantly dissipated when he was back in his arms — Even when both men landed in the dirt with a thud.

He didn’t know if it was the adrenaline from the fall or the whole situation, but Stiles started laughing into Derek’s chest with the wolf following suit.

Stiles peeked up and looked at his falling savior. “Hi there.”

“Hi.” Derek smiled back.

The Sheriff cleared his throat from the door and both men perked up at attention. “Those gutters cleaned?”

Stiles growled softly, then reached out a hand and snapped his fingers. All the leaves and other gunk exploded from the gutters, landing and falling around them without touching them.

“Really, Stiles?” came from under him and the back door.

“Hey! I don’t like this ganging-up-on-Stiles bit.”

Derek chuckled and the vibration rattled through his own chest, warming him from the inside-out. “Get used to it.”

“Rude,” he scoffed and managed to ‘accidentally’ elbow Derek on his way up to his feet again. It only made him feel slightly bad and offered a hand to help him up as well.

"Are you sure you want to stick around, Derek? I can probably match you up with one of my deputies."

Stiles whipped around to say something sarcastic and snappy at the mere  _ thought  _ that someone else would get their hands on Derek, but Derek squeezed his side to silence him.

"I'm pretty sure."

_ Pretty sure?  _ Stiles glared at his other half.

"Eighty-five… Ninety percent," Derek mused.

His dad chuckled and spun his heel to return back to the house. As soon as he was out of sight, Stiles spun on the wolf with a hard palm to his chest.

_ That's for the fifteen percent gap, asshole. _

Derek easily caught his hand and kept it there against his chest. His other hand curled into the waistband of his jeans. “Such a drama queen.”

“Drama  _ King.  _ Get it right.”

“Oh, my bad.” The wolf rolled his eyes, but there was nothing but fondness there. “You’re going to be quite the handful, aren’t you?”

“Nothing but Mischief, baby.” The witch gave a pert little tap to his chest with each word to make his point.

Each tap to the man’s chest, the soft purring grew louder. It never failed to make his knees a little weak and no doubt become one of his most favorite noises. Stiles ran his hands over his chest to find the central source of the noise to no avail, but damn did it make him feel better. 

He dropped one of his hands into Derek’s and squeezed. “Come on, big guy. Let’s go inside and make sure my dad doesn’t get into those brownies.”

Derek’s head tipped a little and he smirked. “Too late.”

_ “John Stilinski,”  _ Stiles exclaimed, effectively whirling back towards the house and leaving his boyfriend in the dust of his fury,  _ “you better not be eating those brownies.” _

Derek watched as his witch stalked back into the house, exchanging a mixed thrawl of nonsense with his father, before following in his steps to make sure he didn’t do anything stupid.

“Stiles, give the man a break,” he eased.

_ “Whose side are you on?” _ one Stilinski argued while the other laughed.

Derek knew he’d have to make sure to make this a usual thing in the future.

When it came time to leave, Stiles found it hard to gather himself and go with ease. He made one last excuse, then another, until Derek pointedly pulled him aside on the back porch and just held him close to his chest.

“I know,” was all he said to him when Stiles’ words failed to fill the void.

He absolutely refused to cry. He clung to Derek and buried his face flat into his chest with high hopes to just smother himself out of existence and just reappear in their apartment without having to face the music.

"We can come back and visit during the summer. It's not like you'll be gone forever."

Stiles mumbled nonsense into his shirt, not particularly caring whether or not it left his saliva there. The wolf probably liked it anyways.

"What was that?"

Stiles pulled away from him, but still rested his cheek on his shoulder to look at him properly. "You'd do that?"

"Well I do have a standing invitation to come back. With or without you." Stiles scoffed.  _ He knew it.  _ "I just know how much he means to you."

He groaned, "You're too perfect."

"I could get used to hearing that."

"I'm not going to inflate any egos."

"A shame, really."

Stiles smiled, which Derek easily returned. His dad made it his mission to interrupt them at that moment, leaning against the door frame with a look akin to wistfulness. 

“Time to go, kiddo.”

“Giving us the boot already? Harsh.”

“You’re the one that said you wanted to be back by sun-down. I’m only doing as you said.”

Stiles nodded and slid from Derek’s hold only to transfer himself into the tight hold of his father. The Stilinski men were always known for their hugs and neither one of them wanted to be the first one to let go. Stiles shamelessly dug his face into the crook of his shoulder, breathing him in and exhaling a silent protection charm that he always laid when he came home.

They broke apart together and his dad left no room for Derek’s objections to pull the man into an equally tight hug. He clasped him on the back. “Don’t be a stranger, Derek.”

“I don’t plan to.”

“And keep my kid out of trouble.”

“Hey!” Stiles objected, raising an arm.

Derek chuckled and pulled away. “As much as I possibly can.”

As the two of them said their final goodbyes, Stiles activated the runes around the door and waited as the light poured out from the cracks. His dad raised an eyebrow, no doubt questioning the newfound ability of his son. Derek sidled up next to the witch with their bags and nodded to the man.

“It really was nice meeting you.”

“And you too, Derek.”

Stiles clasped their fingers together and opened the door. “See ya, dad.”

“I’ll see you — the both of you, again soon.”

Both of them gave nods to the man, then one to each other before they turned to the door and stepped into the unknown.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I needed a little Stilinski-Derek bonding time. Plus, a KISS. It's happening!!!


End file.
